Speech of Obama - where do we stand?

Yet another morning... I woke up and was going through the daily news paper. One article took away all my concentration... almost half the day is over and still the article, rather the question is bugging me up!!!

Actually it is a very big issue which keeps my mind on a roll now for almost 20 years.... It is about the education system of India.

The report says, Mr. Barack Obama, the President of US, has warned Americans about the dangerous challenges they are facing and will be in near future from the Indian and Chinese students. In his 1st State of the union Address, Mr. Obama has literally shown his concern about the fact that the education system, especially the science and maths, in USA are lacking the excellence. At the same time, according to him, education system in India, China and in Germany is better and getting improved day to day.

I'm not concerned about China, for the timing just want to focus on India and it's education system....

Indians are intelligent - no prize to guess/ predict/ understand this... not even a small lozenge :-P

But few points:

1. As an Indian student I'm not happy with our system... after completing 2 masters in science & technology, 1 masters in management and a Ph.D. in process, I can bet there are thousands of crores of loop holes in our education system... from primary to higher education and research - where is the excellence?

Every year we are producing lakhs of graduates and thousands of research scholars bagging their respective degrees... take an honest feed back and see the result. Are they happy?

2. Some would say, Indians are getting jobs; the packages are pretty high now with the entry of global business houses...

But tell me my friend, what kind of jobs? Most of the jobs are BPO/ Call Center and service industry related jobs... where are the research and development related jobs????

3. How many Indian companies invest a considerable of their profit into R&D? Be it IT, biotech, pharmaceuticals, chemical technology or heavy engineering? How many of the MNCs have their R&D set up in India?

4. If the Indian Education system is so strong, why don't we get enough number of patents or high quality research papers in peered journals?

Most of the Indian Universities and top notch research institutes are playing with data. How many publication do Indian science community send to the journals like Science or Nature?

Recently I have watched '3 Idiots'... you people must have watch it. It is a tight slap on the face of our education system... Mr. Rajkumar Hirani has rightly pointed out dumb system. There is a common practice in our country. The best student in the school would go for science. And later on he/ she would pursue engineering or medical. If not, they would do B.Sc. and M.Sc. and later on Ph.D. Finally they will land up with a job in academics. No for that Universities and Govt. funded research labs (run by CSIR) are the first choices. If not? I can think of the local college....

If you can manage a seat in engineering, IITs are the first choice; if not NITs and so and so forth...

If you get a seat in MBBS, oh God!!! Thanks a lot my dear Bhagwannnn....
MBBS, MS, FRCS....

Then?

A clinic.... I am a corporate doc then !!!!

Hippocratic oath? what's that!!!!! :-P


If you are able, you will run behind the best; it's easily understandable. That's why the first choice is IIT, IISc or AIMS or TIFR... not a tom-dick-harry institute.

But what is the yardstick to pick up the best?

Marks... percentile....

How the marks would come?

Easy solution: there are set of questions and standard answers... ready made. Go to any book shop. You will easily find out 100s of them...

Pick them up..... Mug up and Vomit at your exam papers !!!!!

This is what our education system is all about and Mr. Obama is afraid of it?????????

Or there is something else?????

I really don't understand. If you are good student at your college and university and have really achieved something, you will have good scholarship from an American Varsity, for your MS, PhD or Post-Doctoral Studies.

It is crystal clear that India can't provide the infrastructure to hold it's best talent within the periphery. The best 10% students will some how reach MIT or Standford. And the sad but true part is that we can't get them back, even if they want to come back. Every time such issues raised, Govt promised so many; and you know what is actually produced!!!

But how long this stupid system will continue?

How long we will remain the service destination for them??????????????????


As a part of academia, even I am bugged up with the question. I know many of you think like me. But unfortunately till date, we don't have a solid answer.

I know these questions hake your mind too. Even when an IIT-IIM ends up in selling shampoo or soap, he is not satisfied. No one can be.... But the pain continues!!!!