Alpanaji,
Excuse me from seeming uncouth - but He He He thats a good one!!
If you mean Western countries like West Indies -- perhaps you have have heard
right that some --only a few (mostly private run) Indian high schools are
better.
But on the whole there can be no doubt that most Indian high schools (esp govt
ones) lack adequate staff, facilities -- if you compare with western countries
like USA, Canada , UK or even Mexico. In Mexico 98% graduate from elementary
school -compared to 70% in India (that too is a govt estimate - out of those
enrolled -- which is about 80% of total primary school age population).
And even if curriculum is challenging in state level exams - in many states
(including Madhya Pradesh, UP, Bihar and many others) there is always the
option of cheating inside the school examination hall with full cooperation of
the examiners - who may be from another school. Some time back I recall UP had
tougned its anti-cheating rule and passing rate fell from 80% to 30%. The
parents were angry and the govt lost face in international and national arena. .
On the plank that anti-cheating rules would be reverted to old system if
elected - the new govt came to power.
It is true that most private schools are forced to be competitive but in places
like Delhi even government schools are pretty well managed thanks to the civil
society incl media who maintain hawks eye of teacher's teacing and attendance ,
examination etc.
Also, perhaps the NRA perception that US colleges are good but not schools -
may stem from the fact that dating stats early in US (though not true for all
communities) and that by the time students reach college there are mature
enough. So many NRI parents send their kids or migrate wholesale to India till
the "risky years" are over. That may have nothing to do with the quality of
science or math or humanities education provided in US schools or that of UK or
Canada.
Regards.
Umesh
"Alpana B. Sarangapani" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: .hmmessage P {
margin:0px; padding:0px } body.hmmessage { FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY:Tahoma
} Didn't these NRAs get their education in that Indian system itself to begin
with? Or, did they just grow wings to fly to the US right after they were born
in Assam/India?
I thought they say that the standard of secondary school (not college)
education in India is higher than that of many western countries, no?
In order to make spiritual progress you must be patient like a tree and
humble like a blade of grass
- Lakshmana
---------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: assam@assamnet.org
Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 00:16:32 -0600
Subject: Re: [Assam] From Outlook India: An Indictment of In dianHigher
Education
.ExternalClass .EC_hmmessage P
{padding-right:0px;padding-left:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-top:0px;}
.ExternalClass EC_BODY.hmmessage {font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma;} >So at
Thanksgiving 2007 after Turkey and Cranberry pudding they should pledge to work
out a very well thought out plan to enable Direction to Purposeful Education
for all in Oxom now and for the Future.
>Time and tide waits for no man.
Mukulda:
Nice! . And if we have been asked to work out a plan for Purposeful Education
for Oxom, then what do you think in your mind it will be. I have a plan what I
call, Get On Demand Plan. You get whatever you demand. I call it the GOD plan
imagining that money is not the problem (which probably is a fact for Oxom),
that is what we would ask GOD to give for Oxom.
Let us discuss what such a Purposeful Education System would be for Oxom or
rather the North East?
Rajen
----- Original Message -----
From: mc mahant
To: A Mailing list for people interested in Assam from around the world
Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2007 7:59 PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] From Outlook India: An Indictment of In dianHigher
Education
"Education" is what brought many Assamnetters to where they are.
They surely want their old country folk to be properly educated to do
something better-live better-healthier-happier-more useful to the
world/humanity.
So at Thanksgiving 2007 after Turkey and Cranberry pudding they should pledge
to work out a very well thought out plan to enable Direction to Purposeful
Education for all in Oxom now and for the Future.
Time and tide waits for no man.
mm
---------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 12:56:41 -0600
To: assam@assamnet.org
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Assam] From Outlook India: An Indictment of In dian Higher Education
.ExternalClass EC_ExternalClass blockquote, .ExternalClass .EC_ExternalClass
dl, .ExternalClass .EC_ExternalClass ul, .ExternalClass EC_ExternalClass ol,
.ExternalClass .EC_ExternalClass li {padding-top:0;padding-bottom:0;} (
Highlighting mine: cm)
We Do Need That Education...
China is re-orienting and investing in its higher education sector to meet the
challenges of the future, but India continues to ignore the systemic collapse
that is crying out for an urgent and drastic overhaul.
HARSH V. PANT
A few days back, two news stories appeared in the Indian media. One was the
absence of Indian universities from a list of top 200 (not 100!) higher
educational institutions in the world while as many as 10 Chinese universities
made it to the list. The other was about the letter that the Aligarh Muslim
University Vice Chancellor has been forced to write to the parents of his
students threatening to convert the academic session into a "Zero Year" in case
of a repeat of campus violence -- in mid-September, earlier in the year, the
university had been forced to close down after violence and arson on the campus
in protest against the murder of a student. These news items are symptomatic of
the rot that has set in the Indian higher education system, which seems to be
in the news only for wrong reasons.
Amid all the claims about the rise of India as a major player in the
international system, it is often ignored that India continues to face some
fundamental obstacles in its drive to achieve its full potential. One of the
most significant of which is the crisis in India's higher education system,
something that gets drowned in the din of those feel-good stories about the
engineers and managers emerging from India's premier professional institutions
such as the IITs and the IIMs.
Sometime back, inaugurating a national conference of Vice Chancellors (VCs),
organised by the University Grant Commission, the union human resources
development minister, Arjun Singh, described higher education in India as a
sick child and asked that it should be given a new direction so as to be able
to better serve the cause of the nation's youth. Seeking a road map on higher
education from the VCs, he asked them to define "what should be the content,
extent, methodology and basic ingredients of higher education." While Singh's
comments certainly need to be welcomed, especially if they are able to generate
a debate in the country on the future of higher education, it is indeed
surprising that it took him more than three years to address what should have
been his top priority when he assumed office. It is also interesting to note
that some of the minister's own actions in the past three years have not
exactly served the goals of improving the quality of higher education in
the country.
Knowledge is the key variable that will define the global distribution of
power in the 21st century and India has also embarked on a path of economic
success relying on its high-tech industries. But given the fragile state of
India's higher education system, it is not clear if India will be able to
sustain its present growth trajectory. While India's nearest competitor, China
is re-orienting and investing in its higher education sector to meet the
challenges of the future, India continues to ignore the problem as if the
absence of world-class research in Indian universities is something that will
rectify itself on its own. While India may be producing well-trained engineers
and managers from its flagship IITs and IIMs, it is not doing so in sufficient
numbers. There is also a growing concern that while private engineering and
management institutions are flourishing due to rising demand, their products
are not of the quality that can help India compete effectively in the
global marketplace.
India has the third largest higher education system in the world, behind only
the US and China, that is churning out around 2.5 million graduates every year.
Not only is this catering to just about 10 percent of India's youth but the
quality of this output is also below par.If we leave aside the IITs, the IIMs,
and some other institutions such as the AIIMs, the Indian Institute of Science,
and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, we will find a higher education
sector that is increasingly unwilling and unable to bear the weight of the
rising expectations of an emerging India. The Indian universities, which should
have been the centre of cutting edge research and hub of intellectual activity,
are more in the news for political machinations than for research excellence.
Years of under-investment in higher education and a mistaken belief in
providing uniform support to all universities irrespective of the quality of
their output has made sure that the academics have
neither the adequate support to provide top-quality education to their
students nor do they have any incentive to undertake cutting-edge research.
India desperately needs research-oriented globally recognised universities to
be able to participate in the modern-day knowledge-based global economy to its
full potential.
In his perceptive meditation on the state of higher education in the US, The
Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom concludes that "a crisis in the
university, the home of reason, is perhaps the profoundest crisis" for a
democratic nation. Though the crisis that he was drawing attention to arose
from a different set of issues facing the US academia in the 1960s and 1970s,
the present crisis in the Indian universities is equally profound and has the
potential to directly affect the future of India.
This brings us to the larger issue that is at stake in this debate about the
future of higher education in India. Because of the demands of the market, most
students today find engineering, medicine or management to be the most
lucrative options to study. And the Indian education system is such that it has
created an artificial divide between various streams so the context in which
its engineers, its doctors and its managers are emerging is not shaped by the
liberal ethic of higher education, something that should be the essence of
higher education. Social science and humanities are being devalued today
vis-à-vis science and technology which can have some serious consequences.
Democracy requires a questioning citizenry brought up on liberal education
that gives its citizens the ability to interrogate and investigate the claims
of authority. The real value of liberal education comes from a distinctive
quality of mind and character that encourages the ability to explore moral and
political questions from a variety of perspectives. India's higher education
has long ceased to ask big questions, the most important of which should be:
What kind of citizens is the Indian education system producing?
Some scholars have pointed out that a process of privatisation of higher
education system is underway in India, a result not of some comprehensive
programme of education reform but as a consequence of the collapse of the
public sector and the withdrawal of the middle classes. This is indeed a
worrisome trend and it is hoped that the government realises that just by
pumping more money into the system or by building more universities it will not
be able to remedy the underlying rot in the system.
With the National Knowledge Commission calling for a fundamental change in
higher education and the HRD Minister finally realising that something drastic
needs to be done, the stage is hopefully set for a radical overhaul of the
higher education sector. However, despite its tall claims, the present
government's record so far inspires little confidence that it is up to this
task as it has continued to ignore the systemic collapse of Indian higher
education for the last three and a half years.It would be a grave travesty if a
government led by an educationist himself fails to do anything to stem the rot
in India's higher education.
Harsh V. Pant teaches at King's College London
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Umesh Sharma
Washington D.C.
1-202-215-4328 [Cell]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html (Edu info)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (Management Info)
www.gse.harvard.edu/iep (where the above 2 are used )
http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
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