My last post on this blog ended with a question. I asked myself and all those who read this blog if we are just passengers being carried away by the immutable laws of physics into a world which will see us back in a position of inferiority vis a vis other countries. I have my answer and I hope the answer of those who read this blog is similar too. I want to believe that something can be done and that it must be done and that is the reason why I say it is a categorical imperative. All problems affecting this country today are those that go back to the lack of a good system of education. Let me draw a parallel here. The old USSR imploded mainly because it tried to something which was not sustainable. To understand what I am saying better, let us look at the structure of what was the USSR. There were sixteen republics and they lynch pin among them was Russia. A feudal colonial power that brought the fifteen other republics under its control through the usual violent means. In the post Second World War days, especially under the rule of Stalin, Russia pursued its imperial intents under the garb of World Communism. The fifteen other republics were already co-opted into the process by being part of the USSR. At this point I would like to state though there was supposed to be the use of the principle of self determination used in the formation of the USSR, it is well known that most became a part of it since they were not allowed any other option. Russia tried to take on the best imperial powers such as the West European nations and the USA in their own back yard. It believed that through military might the rest of the world could be brought down on its knees. So it accelerated the arms race and in the process spent its precious resources on military might while at the same time starving the people of the USSR literally. The collapse of the Soviet economy was that which led to the implosion and every republic went its peacefully, except Georgia and Chechenya.
For those among you who are wondering as to what this bit of Russian history has to do with the present post, I am drawing a parallel between the Indian education system's present plight with that of the economy of the erstwhile USSR. What makes the parallel possible is the underlying cause which is unrealistic ambition and a foolish determination to prove to the world that you are among the best when actually the basic frame work to getting there does not exist. Russia and the USSR tried to become the most powerful without having the economic strength that is necessary to satisfy such an ambition. India too is trying to climb up the ladder to becoming a brain power while in effect, every step that it takes on this ladder is pulling the ladder down. And that is happening because the basics of what should be good education are not in place. Even though this may entail a repetition of some issues that I have written in other posts, I will go ahead and say that the first big mistake was in expanding the education system without considering the hurdles that it would create. The second big mistake was the government's pursuit of socialism and therefore its inability to invest properly in the educational sector. The setting up of all the huge public sector where there were six supervisors for one worker saw a drain on the resources. This meant that the government had no money to nurture an education system which will feed the developmental process for a long time to come. The result was the almost complete abandoning of the primary education sector and concentrating on the higher education sector. The government was building the IIT's and the IIM's and at the same time creating schools that no one went to at the primary level, simply because there was no infrastructure such as buildings, black boards, teachers etc. The primary and secondary education sector went into the hands of the private sector which in order to sustain itself and to grow required to charge a fee, which millions of poor Indians could not afford to pay. Education was accessible only to the affluent and most who belonged to this category came from the upper castes who had built a base for themselves right from the days of British Imperialism.
This led to the creation of an educated elite, one that generally abhorred the other Indians who represented for them everything that they did not want to be. A couple of generations which emerged out of this primary education system went on to fulfill the aspirations of the IITs and the IIMs as institutions. They were able to churn out students who could compete globally and on equal terms with the rest of the world. At this juncture two things need to looked at. This globally competitive Indian did not see his/her future in India. America for them was the new land of milk and honey and therefore they went that way. Products of the elitist education system who paid for their primary and secondary education and also for a very subsidized higher education did not invest their abilities back in India. So there is in effect no growth in the number of properly educated people contributing back to the system that they came from. As generations of good teachers retired from schools and with not many to replace them the primary and secondary sectors of paid and private schools has also started suffering from the lack of good teachers. Therefore contributions from the private primary sector has also started slow down to a trickle and today it only succeeds in putting out disinterested, illiterate nuveau riche elites, who wannabe but cannot be.
The Universities as I had said in another post also have no talent available and I read with dismay and horror the news that the Central Government in India is not setting up some of the new Central Universities that it proposed to, due to the lack of employable talent. It did not say there were no people holding the required certificates. It only said that the certificate holders (including Ph. Ds) were unemployable. There are two ways of looking at this, horror (for obvious reasons) and relief, because it means that there is a realization that there is no necessity to employ and feed people who will only be a burden on the system. I shall talk more about this in my next post.
But I do appeal to people here in India and abroad who maybe reading this post. Please do not donate money as a fulfillment of your philanthropic objective. Please donate your ability. Do not try to change the existing institutions. They have rotted. Try and create new ones which avoid the trappings of the old. Thank You. I hope someone is reading this and deciding to do something about it.
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