Revisiting Indian Education System

Revisiting Indian Education System: Issues & Challenges

Introduction:

I am glad to be present here for inaugurating this seminar.

The topic of this seminar is very interesting. I will speak for about 10 mins each on the issues and
challenges related to revisiting the Indian Education System.

Naturally, we are speaking of Higher Education here today, although School Education too needs
immediate rethinking and overhauling. In fact, in my opinion, unless School Education in India is
meaningfully transformed, we who manage and run the Colleges face a daunting task. Sometimes I feel
that most of our efforts in changing College & University education don’t bring the expected results
mainly because the students coming into our Colleges and Universities don’t have a rock solid foundation
in the fundamentals of any field. Take language skills, mathematics skills, rational thinking skills, long-
term memory & recall skills; a large number of our students are weak. Hence we cannot build on these
students as per our expectations.

Please listen to a story:

There was a zoo in a city. There was a fruit-garden adjacent to this zoo. One day, the owner of the
fruit-garden complained to the zoo authorities that the giraffe in the zoo was eating all the fruits of his
garden. The zoo authorities held a meeting and decided that the compound wall would be raised to 20
feet. That would prevent the giraffe from sticking its neck into the garden. After some more days, the
owner of the fruit-garden again complained that the giraffe was still eating the fruits. This time, the zoo
authorities raised the compound wall to 50 feet. There was no chance of the giraffe sticking its neck even
by jumping now! But, after some days, the owner of the fruit garden again complained that the problem
was still not solved. This time, a committee was formed to study the giraffe day & night to determine how
it stole the fruits. Do you know what the committee found? The gate between the zoo and the fruit-garden
used to be kept open. The giraffe would simply walk into the garden, eat whatever it wanted and would
come back!

The analogy of this story is clear. Unless we precede our Higher Education reforms with urgent
reforms in the entire school education system in our country, most of our efforts go to waste. At least, our
efforts don’t give commensurate results.

Let us suppose for the time-being that we do have a very good school education system in our
country. If that were the case, what would be the higher education system we would look for?

Naturally, this topic has many aspects, many dimensions. I am sure the distinguished speakers
today will address many of them. I wish to concentrate on two aspects: Practical relevance of the
education we impart to our students; and the utter lack of character-building aspect in this system.

Practical relevance of our Education system:

We need to ask ourselves urgently; what is the relevance of the elaborate education we are
imparting to our students today? So much money & effort are being spent on higher education in India
today. It was not the case 25 years ago. This is really a very good development. But we need to ask

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ourselves: Are we really equipping our students with requisite skills to face the future? I wish to go a little
deeper while on the subject, and ask if we are even doing justice to our students and their guardians. Just
observe the way most of our students behave. Just observe the way most of the colleges are run. Just
observe the way most of the universities function.

Again, let me clarify. I am not being negative. I am really proud of the immense developments we
have made and are making in the field of education. All I am saying is – is this enough? What else needs
to be done? Take the case of research in our universities. Why have we not brought out even one original
idea despite the huge investments and developments in our higher education? Thousands of students do
research in our country today. But not one of them comes forward to start a business based on his or her
own researched idea! That is really strange.

Take the case of freedom of expression, the encouragement given to ‘anti-authoritarian’ behavior
among students. I am not judging whether it is right or wrong. All I am pointing out is – if we are really
concerned about such freedom, how come not one disruptive idea comes from our campuses, an idea that
changes our society for the better, or an idea that changes our economy for the better? I remember a funny
incident. A friend of mine, a monk in our Ashrama, gets many invitations from colleges for lectures. One
such group of students came to invite him for a program. They were all office bearers of their college
students union. They informed the Swami that they had invited some foreign speakers too. Immediately,
this Swami said, “There are two foreign speakers I want you all to invite to this program.” The students
readily agreed and asked who they were. He said, “Invite the General Secretaries of the students union of
Harvard University and Oxford University.” The students understood. Those universities don’t have any
unions. Again, I am not judging, just informing you about what all we need to really rethink regarding our
education system.

We must not lose sight of the very important fact that a huge number of technical innovations
have come from the Indian mind in recent decades. But, unfortunately, it did not flower within the Indian
education system or in the Indian economic system. These Indian minds had to take shelter in American
or European universities and then this very Indian mind brought forth ideas that have completely changed
the world we live in. I am speaking of Ayyadurai who invented Email, Dr Narinder Singh who invented
fiber optics, Prof Mohan Rao who invented Intra-ocular lens for cataract patients, Vinod Dham who
invented the Pen drive and designed the Pentium processors, and Ajay Bhat who invented the USB port.
It is interesting to observe that all these people, originally Indians, went abroad, got educated in some of
their finest universities, invented these modern wonders, and created wealth for their adopted countries
and for themselves. We are proud of such achievers. But no one wants to talk about the elephant in the
room – why couldn’t we do such things with such people right here in India?

Why are we unable to gear our education system into making our students ready for meaningful
participation in the national economic activity? You will say that most of our colleges are indeed
producing good citizens, who go on to hold responsible positions in society. I ask you again, why are our
students ending up as job-seekers? Why don’t we create job-creators? You see, in India, a good college is
one, where most students get a job. Even the NAAC evaluation system gives lot of weightage to this
placement aspect in a college. But, in America or Europe, a good college is one where most students have
start-ups. So a great education system creates many employers, and not just employees.

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I am not even sure if we are creating good employees. Recruit a graduate topper from any of our
universities and you will find that he has no clue of how to fill up an e-tender! He won’t know the
standard procedure to make a purchase for his office. In what way can a fresh graduate today contribute to
the national economy, even as an employee? He needs a whole lot of training to be put to any profitable
work in any office or enterprise. If an educated person needs further training in order to function in
society, naturally that means our education system is deficient. That is something we should change.

Character-building:

That brings us to the second topic I want to discuss today; an idea that was very dear to Swami
Vivekananda – character building. Of course, we cannot actually teach character. We can only identify
and nurture it. Even that we are not doing today.

Listen to a story. It will clarify what I am trying to tell you. Sir C V Raman was once asked by the
Indian Govt to set up a research lab in Bangalore. It is now a famous research facility called ‘Raman
Research Institute’. When he was setting it up, he had advertised for some good research assistants. Sir C
V Raman and his other directors conducted the interviews and went for lunch. When Raman sat down for
his lunch, there was a knock on his door. When he opened it, he saw a young man there who said, “Sir, I
was given my travelling allowance from the office. I saw that I was given fifty rupees extra. I went back
to return it but found that the cashier had left for lunch. Here, Sir, I am returning the extra money to you.”
As soon as the young man said this, Sir C V Raman said, “Wait; you need not go home right now; we
have selected you.” After lunch, when the committee met again, Sir C V Raman explained that he had
told the young man that he was selected. Some of the directors objected to this and said, “What need was
there for such haste? There were many more young men with better knowledge that this boy!” Sir C V
Raman said gravely, “That’s true. But, I can teach Physics to this man. I cannot teach honesty. And this
fellow already has it! That’s why I selected him.”

Sometime in the 1960s, Walter Mitchel, a psychologist in Stanford University, conducted a

famous experiment with about 15 kindergarten children. He would take each child into a room, place a
plate with one chocolate on it before the child and say, ‘This chocolate is for you. You can have it.
However, I have to go out for 10-15 minutes for some work. If you can control yourself from eating this
till I return, then I will give you one more.’ Then he would go out. There was a camera in the room which
recorded the child’s reaction. Those recordings are available on YouTube. It is called ‘The Marshmallow
Experiment’. You should see it. It is beautiful. Some children folded their hands, started looking the other
way to avoid the temptation. They controlled themselves completely and waited till he returned and gave
them another chocolate. Then there were some other kids who ate the chocolate even before he left the
room! Absolutely no self-control. There were some other kids who faced enormous conflict – should I eat
this one or wait? What if he doesn’t return? Won’t I lose this one too? The actual experiment however
was yet to come. Walter Mitchel studied the future development of these 15 kids for the next 20 years. He
found a crystal clear correlation between their self-control and their achievement in life. Those kids who
controlled themselves completely, not eating the chocolate and waited till he returned, those kids grew up
to have degrees, masters and doctorates; they had higher paying jobs, and had stable family life. Those
kids who had absolutely no self-control ended up without completing their education, had police records
and had troubled personal lives. The kids with conflict – well, some of them turned out well, and some
failed in life!

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In the Taittiriya Upanishad, we have the great Upanishad Rishis calling students to come to
them. You may consider this as some sort of advertisement of that age! ‘Aamaayantu brahmacharinah
swaahaa; Shamaayantu brahmacharinah swaahaa; Damaayantu brahmacharinah swaahaa;’ May
students come to me; may virtuous students come to me; may self-controlled students come to me. This is
the meaning of those mantras.

Just look at two things here. The great Upanishad Rishis are not telling, ‘We are so great that, no
matter who comes to us, we will educate them.’ Those Rishis were so great that they could indeed have
said that; they did indeed have such power! Instead these great Rishis are specifying that the students who
come to them must be virtuous and self-controlled! Recall Sir C V Raman’s comment that I mentioned
earlier. Can we ignore this vital point in our present education system?

The other interesting thing is, the Rishis call the students as Brahmacharins. There is another
word for student – Vidyarthi. The Rishis did not use that word. They instead used the word Brahmachari.
Why was that? Character-building was an integral part of education in ancient India. We have to give our
students ideals. High ideals translate as character. If we don’t have high ideals, we cannot have character.
A student who cannot come to college on time will grow into an employee who cannot work efficiently.
A student who will get marks by hook or crook will grow into an employee who will earn money even by
corrupt means. That is the connection.

Our colleges and universities must become places of high ideals. Our professors must have great
commitment to ideals. Then, we will be able to rub off some of it to our students. We need to bring about
this transformation urgently in our education system, especially in our higher education system. If we
don’t, all this monumental effort we are spending on educating our children will go waste.

Please listen to a story: A person was walking on a road and saw two people working. One of
them was digging a hole in the ground. Another came behind him and put all the dug up mud back and
closed the hole. Again and again these two people were doing this. This observer saw for a long time and
tried to figure out what was happening. When he couldn’t understand it at all, he went up to them and
asked what they were doing. One of them replied, “Sir, we are doing a Govt project here on afforestation.
I dig a hole in the ground. Another person comes and puts a sapling in that hole. A third person comes
after that and fills up the hole with mud. Today, the second guy is absent!”

With that idea, I bring my lecture to an end.

I am grateful to the organizers of this seminar for inviting me to inaugurate it and deliver the
keynote address. I wish this seminar a grand success.

Thank you all.

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