How to improve India's higher education and research quality?
jayanta chatterjee
Tuesday, 04 November 2008 16:46 UTC
It’s a well established fact that India is going downhill in science education and research, despite of relative huge increase in funding and being the major technical manpower supplier for IT and global research community, successfully undertaking Moon mission and so on. I am wondering how we can regain our lost glory and improve on that so far our science education and research is concerned. I am mentioning some remedies below that came to my mind.
1. Reduce spending of public money on higher education and research for non-performing institutes and universities. Only teaching (without any productive research in form of quality publications or usable patents) does not justify huge spending by some so-called “elite” institutes/universities. All institutes/universities should be graded and judged as per their performance and public monetary support should depend on that. (UGC has started this but not with much cooperation from universities and so-called elite institutes and with very limited success so far).
2. Introduce strict accountability of public money for any research in any institute or university. And any research finding (mainly related to novel service or product) using public money must be mentioned in an open source (e.g unrestricted web site(s) for public access). If hundreds of corers of rupees are spent on “developing Bt- crop for insect resistance”, then public have the right to know what is the outcome from that huge spending of tax payers’ money. And if needed, a farmer or other researcher(s) should be able to access that information and more importantly the materials developed in such projects, as claimed by the researcher/institute.
3. Private institutes and universities must follow a minimum standard to give degrees.
4. Start “tenure track” system in Indian institutes/universities.
5. Increase spending substantially on primary and high school education (Both qualitative and quantitative). Increase the salaries of teachers at least at per with university lecturers and put stringent quality control while recruiting the teachers and introduce accountability among them. We must increase substantially the number of primary schools and quality of those and improve on physical infrastructures like school buildings, a minimum standard of school laboratory and library, a decent play ground, some internet connected computers in libraries etc.
6. Change the education system from the primary level (reduce work load, put more importance on physical activities, encourage original thinking etc). There should not be any form of evaluation (exam or so) till age 10 years (i.e till class 4 level). Subsequently the exam patterns should change and put more emphasis on original thinking and problem solving rather than emphasizing database-quiz type format. Basic education should be in mother tongue but English also should be compulsory from class 1.
7. Provide increased opportunities for students in rural and semi-urban India (in form of transparent information dissemination, transparent selection for fellowship/scholarships and recruitments).
For the long run:
Abolish reservation policy altogether. Provide quality primary and high school education free for all.
We have an obligation to give something back to our country which will have a long term impact on the whole society. These are few of my thoughts. Let’s start a vibrant discussion and let us know your opinion in this matter.
Updated 04 November 2008 16:54 UTC
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Thank you Dr Yadav.
I am giving you one example. Once I was a student in a very famous institute in India. There, a very powerful “scientist” used to take classes on “protein structure and function”. Most of the time he used to be away or abroad. During few rare examples, when he took classes, he used to come at least 15 mins late (for a class of 45 min) and would start telling us how great Germany is, how beautiful Canada is, how nice Japanese rail network is and so on. One day I asked him if he will finish the course, as we were supposed to take a test. That made him a bit upset and annoyed. He told me to meet him after the class. There he told me, “Jayanta, you are totally misfit here, in our society and research in India”. I could not agree more, considering my earlier dreams to become a “scientist” and what I was experiencing after joining “research”. The sermon of that “scientist” went on, asking me not to waste my time and their time. He also offered me “all help” to get ANY fellowship for UK (he used to be very powerful person in selection for many UK bound fellowships). I did not accept his offer, mainly because that would imply that I myself were not capable of getting that. Initially I used to think that if one has capability and determination, s/he can do research in India, as my parents and grandparents told me. I was so convinced about it that I tried my best to be in India and do some “meaningful research”. After few institutes and 7 years (after my MSc), I realized that it’s easier to get God than a straight-forward, honest human being and a real scientist to supervise Indian students who (unfortunately) wants to do “research”. I was trained in classical genetics (during my BSc) by one of the finest teachers. He was a very productive and highly talented scientist I ever met (trained in the famous university in Wageningen, The Natherlands). He came back to India when he could have easily got a productive career there in the west. Later he was so frustrated that he preferred to keep aloof and confine himself in a much less famous college in a small town in Bengal. Later I met few such people and almost alll are highly frustrated and generally aloof, both from the society and the general scientific community in India.
Humility and politeness probably does not work in India, as the system is manly ruled by corrupt but highly vocal people. They are generally very aggressive, manipulative and politically well-connected to perpetuate the present system of corruption and nepotism. A few isolated efforts by some exceptional personalities like Dr Kalam probably will not bring much change to it (as a system), unless we make general people aware what is going on and what need to be done and bring back accountability into the system. It will only happen when general people start demanding that. Being polite will not help towards that direction. General Indian people are less worried about science and research. Survival with one’s own dignity and honesty itself is a great achievement in India today. Only naked truth, how rude it may be, may be, just maybe, able to shook them up and force them to start thinking how their money (tax payer) is being used, what they deserve and what they get as a person and as a nation. ONLY then they will start demanding accountability and that’s the only way to reform the system in a sustainable way, according to me. -
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Early morning mail – good morning.
We have listened to each other and now let us proceed to place here the simple and systematic way of solving the problem that you have raised. Please take up the three points in succession – Observation, Analysis and the Action plan. Please see that your action plans are in line of the policies derived from the Indian constitution. Please don’t say that the policies derived are wrong because these are outcome of one the best brains of India either at home or abroad. Well, we admit that the people meant to execute these policies are
—you have liberty to put any adjective here – Indian or American -— but please don’t utter or write. If you utter you will be a bad man – if you write you will never be a scholar – if you realise and act for better footing, we are sure, wherever you are, one day you will be a great teacher and mentor of the society.Regards
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May I say, that all policies in Indian constitution are not supportable. There are many examples. I will judge a policy on its own merit (both from long term and short term basis), not by who has created that. The backbone of the country was never built. On top of that, the country was divided on many lines and many of such divisions got constitutional support (as per “political compulsions” during and just after independence). We got independence when we were least prepared. Our political leadership that time did not prepare us to have a free country; neither had they done it after independence. We were never prepared to carry out our “responsibilities” but made aware of our “rights”. The result is in front of us all; all round anarchy (terrorism is only a ramification of that), high corruption, destruction of majority of our democratic institutions and so on. Even the present economic success can be attributed to few people, not to the system, be it telecom or IT industry or space or atomic research in India.
On top of that, the executions of majority of policies are not in true spirit of those policies, when those were framed, to describe at best (a glaring recent example is “National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme” or more commonly known as “gramin rojgar yojona” (1).
There are also many examples that our policy makers “amended” policies whenever they need- for many obvious reasons. It’s very tough to change/amend American constitution or that in many developed countries but not so in India, as I understand. Whenever a person disagreed with the then political leadership and put forward an alternative option, s/he was always sidelined or had his/her way by dividing the society or the country. This trend started long before we got freedom. Sycophancy started that time. Best of inatentions do not have any value unless it’s executed in an unbiased way and in a transparent manner. We may describe it many different terms but the consequences remain the same.In continuation of my previous message, I like to mention that there are few morre people in Indian science who are personally honest but prefer not to oppose corruption (for obvious reasons ofccourse). This type of people is no less harmful for the system as compared to those who are personally corrupt.
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There is one main problem with knowledge based private industries in India. Most of the successful Biotech or other knowledge based industries in the West are headed/established by people who are well qualified in the area of their business. It gives them a great and unique advantage to recruit people who have potential and they themselves can evaluate promising technology and/or product. You always can hire a trained business manager (MBA or so) to run routine business operations but you can never get that luxury when identifying the core product or service among a vast array of choices and recruit right people in technical/research positions from huge available pool of people with degrees (with publications and patents).
Very few Indian IT or BT companies that got global success also have that virtue. On the other hand majority of Indian “knowledge based” industries are not headed by people with required talent and training. For many, it’s just another investment which is supposed to give them better return, as they heard from “reliable sources”. Such businessmen or industrialists would not mind to invest in a cloth shop, or grocery shop or retail chains if that is more (potential) profitable for their investment (quite natural). As a result they are easily fooled by “scientists” who have some degrees (Indian or foreign degree does not seem to have much difference) and have a good PowerPoint software expertise with some degree of connection (network) and decent ability to talk among equally brilliant “experts”. They do promise even the moon. A person working with cancer (mainly a gene or protein) for last few years promises that s/he can develop cure for cancer. A person using a research technique for years, do claim that he can develop a drug or a novel (transgenic) crop variety using that technique. Nice PowerPoint presentation is OK to convince such “experts”. If the person does not have personal connection(s) with higher authority in the organization, s/he will be given about 3-5 years time to prove what s/he claims. When the company is convinced that person cannot deliver what s/he promised, they give enough indication to force him/her to go away. After few years of “experience” and some lakhs of salary s/he also starts looking for new pastures. And India is still a country what sufi poet Kabir observed hundreds of years ago- “if you search one fool, you will easily find many”. Such “executives” and “scientists” do change companies in about 4-6 years interval till s/he attains enough “seniority” where no one dares to ask him any question or demand accountability anymore. His/her full adherence to ancient hierarchy structure and loyalty to the established “system” will insulate him/her from lower grade staff or junior scientists. Now it’s his/her time to rule. S/he waits for retirement, enjoy western life style with unique Indian feudal-system benefits (which he will never get in Western countries), send his/her kids to buy degrees for ivy league universities in US or EU to perpetuate the rule of mediocrity. Majority of so-called R&D centers in India are just like this. What can a sensible person expect from such establishments other than producing generic drugs, patent expired vaccines or copying technology developed by others? Naturally such organizations never grow to become a global leader and survive in semi-protected Indian market, so far, exploiting vast resource of cheap technical manpower, cheap raw materials and almost total breakdown of judiciary in India. Fortunately, foreign companies are learning all these tricks fast and expanding their Indian operations. Future seems to be interesting and challenging. -
The contributions on this blog have been highly motivated but I think we are still in a blind alley without offering any tangible solutions. It is obvious that we are far from competitive. This has been amply explained (with data) by none other than Professor G. Padmanabhan in his report submitted to the UGC: http://www.ugc.ac.in/more/reportprc.html (ANNEXURE-VII Science Education in India : by Prof. G. Padmanaban)
I appreciate the candid views put forth by Jayant. I personally feel a competent scientist is humble, caring and strives to make the lab working pleasant. Further, he/she feels secure by virtue of output. I feel the root cause of all the ills in science is the entry of guys (they are in majority) who are not at all suitable for teaching or research. The day we put in place the mechanism and fool-proof criteria (which cannot be compromised or manipulated) for faculty selection everything else would fall in place. The right type of guys (who are passionate about work, curious, compulsive truth seekers) do not waste time in cultivating ”connections” because they get intellectual satisfaction from work and the success of their students. So, the bottom-line is:
Have the right faculty by putting in place international criteria every thing else would follow. Money/funds/infrastructure are secondary to men (women included) and the fine grey matter in their head!!. Jayant has already said some of the Indian labs are so wonderfully equipped that such facilities may not be around at one place in US as well.Om Sharma
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Hi, everyone. We are doing same thing for what we are known (maximum time on argument). This is a nature blog, science should also be discussed. I agree that their are problems and we not done great science (no noble prize). I hope some of us are researchers/scientist, we are also responsible for research. are May I know simple question, from every one on this discussion forum. What type of research you are doing, how you rank your contribution at india and world level. What are hurdles you are facing. What you need in order to become world class scientist. Jayant, you are now out of India and hope you have lot of opportunity as well as you are dedicated to science. May I know what type of research you are doing, do you feel that in next few years you will be world-class scientist. I am starting this discussion in order to understand each others experience and limitations. We all talk at country level and world level but nobody talk at personal level which is important.
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Early morning mail good morning.
Dear Om, this was a nice beginning this morning for me as it sounds to capture entire universe in me. It masters Aa, Uu and Mm. The sound therapy advocates in its favor and the notes and the tones won’t match other words as well. The vibration has been recently recorded at various level and physicists are now of the opinion to consider tagging light and sound together to study whether something can come out even faster than light to foster knowledge in advance. Recently this was discussed in detail by npg scientists on line at lengtht.
The Govt. of India is taking care to meet your concern employing various mechanism. NKC is one of them. The report is already submitted similar to the one you have suggested and PM has accepted it after several rounds of discussions with people from variour universities and national institutions. Seemingly things will go well for most of the Intellectuals are interested in such Administrative Reforms except those who run for certificates or caring from upstream bosses with cups and spoons in their pockets.
There was survey recently on under weight teachers recruited in a medical college. Students expressed the situation by saying that teachers recruited in reservation categories have failed to express in English – they prefer to read chapters from books like school teachers. The expert committee met the principal and the problem was heard. The Principal narrated – we can’t go against the policy however we have liberty to see if the incoming person is suitable or not – but at this stage some people from out side influence us and because of some understood reasons we are bound – RTA may take care now. For those who are already in place the following remedy was undertaken. The Principal suggested them friendly to do some home work and in that endevour he promised to help them. We met the teachers, two in number, and also the principal after six month. This time we were introduced to these simple teachers. They were happy to meet us. We met students also and recorded their version – magic, magic this GANWAR has become gentleman within six month – see he is also well dressed.
For every ailment in the sun there is a remedy – if there is one please find it and if none – please don’t mind it.
Regards
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Dear Raghava. This forum is not for discussing personal achievements. That’s why I am not mentioning any specific names or specific institutes in any of my messages. For the same reason, I will not ask you the same question. If you have any specific question, you can send me via email. Here we are discussing policies and ways to solve problems. By the way, you can check my profile for few more detail, what I do, where I do, projects I am involved with etc. I think it will be sufficient to say that I do apply a very stringent quality for my own work (in plant molecular biology) and I am the best critique for my own work too.
In India it’s very common that people (higher authority) first try to confuse and if that does not work, then they start personal attack to silence any criticism. I hope that will not be the case in such forums.I also like to mention that science and scientists are not coming from a different planet. They are the product of the same society, comes from the same pool of people that supply other professionals like Police, politicians, lawyers, doctors etc. We get the quality of scientists in perfect balance with the quality of other professionals. I do not believe that we can change a person at grown up stage and make him/her more honest, be it scientists or artists. Scientists are not living in isolation and need to survive in the prevailing situation of the society. I feel science, research etc are the outcome of the overall situation of our society/country. The main thrust should start much before that, at the childhood level. That’s why I strongly believe that we must reform our primary school and secondary education to get better quality scientist (or any other professional) latter. I know that It’s a long term process but it’s the only process that can give us a sustainable result. In the mean time we can try to put some ad-hoc type policies to minimize the damage.
Now coming to some excellent points by Dr Yadav. In India, NKC and some of its predecessors were only used if that toe to political lines. E.g many members of NKC including its president Dr Pitroda and our present PM opposed caste based reservation in jobs and higher education but we all know what happened next.
As Dr Sharma said, the first criterion is to select right people for the right position. But in present situation, it’s almost impossible to implement any policy that prevents nepotism in India. It seems that almost everyone has someone or other to satisfy. There is a long que of candidates behind each selection committee member. During ones long journey to the top (to become a selection committee member) they gather this “obligation” baggage.
Long time ago, there was demand to publish the full CV of any newly recruited faculties and all staff members in any govt institute. This is very important in many famous institutes in the West and it’s a long overdue in India.Sometime ago, I was in an Indian research organization. There I had to “guide” three students (final year masters student in Biotech in a very reputed Institute in Mumbai. I realized that they were carrying out orders and not asking any question, not giving any suggestions. They have very poor basic understanding of the subject but very efficient in data. They are more interested in technique than science itself. Latter I realized that this attitude is not limited to science; in fact their overall attitude towards life, their thinking about society is simply reflected in their research activities and. I tried to encourage them to do some physical exercise on a regular basis, tried to provoke them to apply logic in their general thinking. If a person accepts illogical “norms” of the society, then it will not be wise to expect a great scientific personality from that person. Anyway, later at least two of those three students started doing regular exercise, became more organized. I myself start working in the lab at 9-9.30 am and hate to work after 7 pm. I always keep weekends for myself when I enjoy time with family and invest in my hobbies. I do believe that those are very crucial for my productivity in science. In India and to some extent in US too, it’s very tough to maintain this. Fortunately I have good research experience in Europe that convinced me about that.
I personally feel that if I cannot maintain a pleasant working condition among the lab members, If the people working in the lab is not working in happy frame of mind, then there is a serious problem there. And if I myself worked in a lab where freedom is allowed, smiling and lighter side of life, hobbies were encouraged, then only I’ll become a good mentor and a suitable faculty for a productive institute. -
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On 10. 10. 2007 Govt. of India had declared – Higher Education in India is a sick child. The basic research is several steps down and India is banking solely on few people – rest are surviving through lobby networking. Anyone can imagine how grave is the situation here in India now. However few people try to hide things for their own personal interest. It is after this declaration we became active although we have forty fields to be studied from Administrative Reforms point of view. Please feel free to provide your logistic support as sons and daughters of India while discharging your own duties there or here honestly. It will pay you and also the countrymen in long run but without such a feedback nothing seems to come in sight.
Regards
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It is important that we crystallize the problems at this stage and list the pragmatic solutions.
To start, I would say:
1. Things are not in order in science teaching as well as research.
2. Most of the researchers are complacent with the routine things they do (like lousy techs. I have a lot of respect for the techs. I have a couple of wonderful techs who are curious and very methodical).
3. The corporate sector has efficient working because there is a chain of responsibility and everybody in the chain needs to deliver because they cannot generate wealth without efficiency. Unfortunately in public sector the only chain of responsibility is writing ACR (I think we should be candid that this activity is a routine. Providing honest appraisal for the inefficient guys is inviting troubles).
4. The number of compulsive thinkers is very less and they get mobbed by the outstanding ones!!!(those who spend more time in social networking).Solutions:
1. Forget about those who are below a threshild of competence.
2. The suggestion made by Jayant to put the CV wih full list of publications of the new faculty on the website is wonderful. It must get implemented the same way as all institutions have put the RTI on the institution websites. This would be “reality-check” on the way institution is working.
4. Adopt the faculty hiring procedure whatever is in place in (say)USA.WHO WOULD DO IT??
Perhaps, scientists like Dr. Jadav who have voice and visibility would come forward to get all this implemented in a time frame.
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Kind attention:
We need thousands of Sophie Wolfes for a country of billion plus. Please read on what Paul Berg, the Nobel Laureate has to say:Instead of football as extracurricular activity, I came under the spell of an inspiring
“teacher,” Sophie Wolfe. Although her job was to supervise the stockroom that supplied the classes in chemistry, physics, and biology, she organized an after-school program of science clubs, in part, I presume, because she loved young people. She had a special talent for drawing students out. No question or speculation was spurned; rather, she encouraged us to wonder and to seek problems and solutions for ourselves. Sometimes that meant doing an experiment, sometimes it meant going to the library, but there was always an emphasis on solving problems through investigation.
For me, doing experiments to answer questions or solve problems was a very heady
experience, almost addicting. Looking back, nurturing curiosity and a passion for seeking solutions were perhaps the most important lessons I gained during that time. With time, many facts that I learned in class were forgotten, but I never lost the urge to question and discover. I was not the only one to benefit from Sophie Wolfe’s influence. Two other Nobel Laureates, Arthur Kornberg and Jerome Karle, preceded me through Lincoln High School and Sophie Wolfe’s tutelage. Many years later, the New York City Board of Education honored Mrs.Wolfe by bestowing her name on the School’s Science Wing; additionally, one floor of the wing was named for Kornberg, one for Karle, and one for me.
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Om Sharma
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