Flaws in Indian higher education system

Arguably since independence Indian higher education system is considered to be a faulty system, even though we have created institutes likes of IISC, IITs, IIMs, NITs, AIIMS, PGI and many reputed universities likes of JNU,DU, Allahabad University, BHU, AMU, Bombay University etc. but still when we check globally any of our Institute does not stand in the TOP-200 list of world. Some of the major reasons which can easily be pointed out are:

1. Time is being wasted on assessing the problems, rather than finding solutions

Let’s look at the service and solution providers as an example. You go and attend any educational conference there will be hour long speeches, expert panel discussions and solutions from experts in the industry. The conclusions will be similar –

“Attitude needs to change”,

“We need to get back to the basics”,

“Funding needs to increase”,

“Structural and design changes”,

“Awareness needs to increase” and my personal favorite,

“We need more data and analysis” and so on

2. Gap between supply and demand

India’s gross enrollment ratio (GER) -GER stands for Gross Enrollment Rate, or the percentage of students enrolling into higher education institutes each year post high school. is around 19 percent at the moment which is 6 % below the world average and 50 % lesser than countries such as Australia and the USA.

India has the largest population of teens with close to 100 million in number between 17 to 19. But each year only 19 % students enroll into higher education institutes which roughly is equal to 20 million it means whopping 81 % or 80 million in number who do not have the opportunity to study even if they wanted to. And further worst that only 3.5 million graduates join the workforce each year among these 20 million. So, There is a massive gap that is created due to the difference in the number of schools and higher education institutes that really needs to be bridged.

3. Mushrooming of low quality, money making Institutes.

As a result of that huge gap, people who should not be in the field of education want to capitalize on this gap It’s no secret that the education industry is now turned into a business. Politicians, realtors, businessmen/women – basically anybody who wants to mint some serious cash, start to open colleges.

4. India’s obsession with the service industry.

Since the era of globalization India Inc saw a gradual shift from being a manufacturing hub to a service provider. This was fueled mainly by the boom in I.T and B.P.O industries, and has had a large role to play in the way our education system has been modeled in the past almost two decades.

Along with the I.T and B.P.O industries, even our education institutes started seeing themselves as service providers, rather than being a place where the students were molded into innovators and architects of the future. The service they provided was that of certifying graduates as “employable by the service industry.

5. Ineffective Foreign Education Providers Bill

In September of 2013, the government of India passed an executive order to allow the top 400 universities in the world to set up campuses in India and allow them to function independently, without the requirement of Local Partners. This sounded promising and one can see the possibilities when universities such as Duke University and Georgia Tech, both among the top fifty U.S Universities, started to show interest.As always fine print seems to spoil the goods. Firstly, they aren\’t allowed to take surplus profits out of the country, Secondly, they have to deal with getting permissions from the UGC. Everybody knows how that can be a problem – right people, right amount of money and you may still get the short end of the stick.The foreign education providers Bill can be more effective if steps are taken to coolly regulate them similar to their Singapore and Dubai counter parts – granting quick permissions, infrastructure and subsidies. These countries are quickly emerging as top quality higher education hubs for students from around the world.

6. Lack of relevant opportunities and project based learning

Most of us living in the cities have had the privilege of studying in some of the better institutions. But the way they function is a far cry from their more superior counterparts across the globe, nor are they that much better than their inferior counterparts locally. There is a reason not a single Indian University ranks in the world top 200. Even at top institutes, students are force fed a few kilos of textbooks, spend a relatively short time on hands-on project based learning and are absorbed into fields irrelevant to their subjects.

To put things into perspective, engineering graduates have to study about 40 subjects – that’s close to 250,000 pages worth of information, spend an average of 6000 hours attending classes out of which only 500 hours are spent interacting in “Labs” across 4 years, have to write 120 internal assessment papers and 50 main exams, undertake a couple of \”projects\” which was probably stolen from their seniors and let\’s not even get into the amount of time and resources spent on travelling and studying. And then after all that effort, most of them get jobs in the I.T service industry which has absolutely nothing to do with what they learnt. Only 15 % are lucky enough to get into relevant industries.Oh and did I forget to mention that 85 % of graduates are considered unemployable due to lack of relevant Industry experience? Where on earth are these students supposed to get “Relevant Industry Experience” if they are busy eating outdated textbooks instead of some industry relevant training and project based learning?

Conclusion: The above points are just the pointers and presented in a superficial perspective, one really needs to dig deep to understand the real complexities. The government alone can’t make improvements as much as it is their job. Reforms that are not name sake, heavy involvement from the private sector and more youngsters venturing into the field of education are few of the things that could help alleviate the problem. But we need to start somewhere.

My name is Alok Mishra and I am a web designer who specializes in creating dynamic and beautiful web pages. I have been in the field for nearly 3 year, and have been loving every minute of it. http://www.mangalmay.org/

My name is Alok Mishra and I am a web designer who specializes in creating dynamic and beautiful web pages. I have been in the field for nearly 3 year, and have been loving every minute of it. http://www.mangalmay.org/

Author Bio: My name is Alok Mishra and I am a web designer who specializes in creating dynamic and beautiful web pages. I have been in the field for nearly 3 year, and have been loving every minute of it. http://www.mangalmay.org/

Category: Education
Keywords: education, engineering, colleges, B.Tech