Saturday, October 15, 2011

Kapil Sibal Strikes Again

I had earlier written about Kapil Sibal http://calmisc.blogspot.com/2011/05/kapil-sibal-india-einstein.html. I read today that he believes India needs 1000 more universities (http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/article2537790.ece?homepage=true&ref=wl_home).

That's terrific. Assuming conservatively that each university has 500 students that graduate each year, we will have about half a million more students passing out with undergraduate degrees.

And each of these universities will give employment to about 30 teaching staff, 40 administrative staff. And imagine the spend on land, buildings, computers and other infrastructure. That will give a boost to the economy. Some of the graduating students will return as faculty. Some will go on to do a master's degree or a doctorate and publish papers.

In terms of number of English speaking graduates India's rank might go higher.  It probably is already in the top 3 as I write now. And India, just as any other country, definitely needs top class minds who can make a difference.

Now the question is: What is the quality of the students that graduate from colleges / universities in India? What is the quality of teaching? Infrastructure? What is the crying need? More students? Or Better quality of students? Which issue is Mr Sibal addressing?

How fit are the students for consumption by the industry? Is the primary issue in India one of quantity or quality?

How will 1000 more universities solve the problem? instead of 600 million non- graduate morons we will have perhaps only 590 million of them, the other 10 million becoming morons with graduate degrees. And perhaps one of them may go on to become the Education Minister.

If instead we had the industry dictating what education should be like or at least strong participated in dictating the curriculum and trained the teachers, we could create better citizens and students.

1 comment:

  1. "
    If instead we had the industry dictating what education should be like or at least strong participated in dictating the curriculum and trained the teachers, we could create better citizens and students."

    If you feel so strongly about it, you are one of the industry why don't you start doing it???

    Its like any woman blaming the world for her plight and when asked to address the issue, she would answer (like me) I am after all just a woman!! How does it sound to you?

    ReplyDelete

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