Mail Today, Saturday, January 28, 2012 18 NEWS SPECIAL REPORT

UNION human resource devel-opment (HRD) minister KapilSibal on Friday spoke againstthe politicisation of educationin the country. He was criticalof the state governments and

lamented their reluctance to reform theeducation system.

Citing the example of 13 key Bills of his min-istry that are stuck in Parliament, Sibal, whowas speaking at the India Today Aspire Educa-tion Summit 2012, made a strong case for dis-tancing politics from education.

“Everybody is thinking of when and how wewill come to power. Where is the national vision?Nothing can be done unless political partiescome together and realise that education is anarea of national importance and should be a pri-ority,” he said.

“I want to give degrees to students in theIndian Institute of Science, Education andResearch (IISER), but I cannot because there isno political consensus in the House,” he added,referring to the non-passage of the NIT Act(Amendment) Bill 2011 in the Rajya Sabha.

This means that the students of IISER in Puneand Kolkata who completed theirfive-year course in the summer of2011 are left in the lurch, withoutany degree.

The minister, who has been onthe defensive in the wake ofrecent disparaging reports (Pro-gramme for InternationalStudent Assessment andAssessment SurveyEvaluation Research)on the state of educa-tion in India, went onto illustrate how thecentral government— even though itattracts the maxi-mum flak for deficien-cies in the educationsystem — has little roleto play in on-groundimprovement.

The biggest challenge, he said,was to get the states to imple-ment the reform policies intro-duced by the Centre. And anybid to exert pressure is misin-terpreted as “interference” in

state governance. “We (the Centre) can introduce

policies and allocate funds. Butit’s impossible for us to monitorif a child is receiving quality edu-cation in Bihar or Orissa. The

reality is that the imple-mentation of policies

happens at the statelevel,” he said.

Calling the taskof empowering 20million childrenthrough educa-tion “herculean”,Sibal said Indiawould not be able

to join the ranks ofdeveloped countries

unless it created a“critical mass” of young-

sters who will pursue highereducation.

Currently, 16 of every 100 stu-dents in India reach universitylevel, whereas the figure is 40 inthe developed world. The gov-

ernment aims to increase thenumber of university-going stu-dents from 16 million to 45 mil-lion by 2020.

This gap, Sibal said, can bebridged through effective imple-mentation of the Right to Educa-tion Act which was introducedalmost two years ago. It promotesinclusivity in education and willdemocratise classrooms.

“The Act will create an environ-ment to nurture that critical massthat will go to university by 2020,”the minister added.

The Act will lead to efforts toadmit and retain more children inschools, which would, in turn, leadto a build-up of pressure at theuniversity level.

The minister also asked thestates to increase their budgetallocation for education andcalled on them, as well as the pri-vate players, to help meet theneed of an additional 1,000 univer-sities in the future.

By Mail Today Bureau in New Delhi

SIBAL DECRIES

Currently,16 of every 100

students in Indiareach university

level, whereas thefigure is 40 in the

developedworld

HRD ministersays states notdoing enoughto implementcentral policies

Everyone is thinkingof when & how we willcome to power. Whereis the national vision?

— Kapil Sibal, HRD minister

‘Need Doon & Mayo for poor’OVER 800 scholarships are earmarkedfor humanities at Bombay Universitybut, according to a faculty member, itends up receiving barely a dozenapplications. Filmmaker Prakash Jha(in picture) pointed out this startlingstatistic as evidence of the dire stateof Indian education. “We have almostforgotten the essence of education,and have started considering it themanufacturing of managers,” Jha saidat a panel discussion on ‘Redefiningthe Classroom’ at the India TodayAspire Education Summit 2012.

Jha, whose film Aarakshancovered the problems withreservations in education,said the policymakers arepicking the wrong tech-niques to attack systemicproblems. “With affirmativeaction, I found dissatisfactionat every level,” he said. “Thestory of reservation never ends…politicians have to plant reservationswithin reservations.”

He called for the government toensure that all students have theopportunity to get the education theywant. This, he said, needs to be doneeven if it pushes spending on education

from 4 per cent of the GDP to 14. He also decried the way education has

turned almost into a commercialtransaction — with teachers as

service providers and studentsas clients. “We have learnt theart of management,” Jhasaid. “There is a huge paucityof good universities withgood teachers. People who

don’t get any other job end upapplying for a teacher’s job.”As an example of an alterna-

tive approach, Jha pointed toSuper 30, a Patna-based educationalinitiative. The organisation, founded bymathematician Anand Kumar, selects30 talented students from extremelypoor backgrounds and prepares themfor the IIT-JEE.

Mail Today Bureau

THE widening rural-urban divide isone of the biggest challenges for India’seducation system. India needs anothertechnology revolution in the educationsystem to bridge this gap, Shiv Nadar,founder of HCL Technologies, said on Friday.

“Both the urban child and the ruralchild have the spark, the ambition, thegenius; the only difference is theiraccess to information about the world,”Nadar said in his keynote address atthe India Today Aspire EducationSummit 2012.

“We need a world-class institutionwhich will create leaders out of the chil-dren who have not had a good start inlife. We need schools like Doon andMayo for the poor,” Nadar said.

This 66-year-old philanthropist-edu-cationist believes the governmentneeds to be more proactive, with aproper vision and action plan, to makegood school education programmeseffective.

According to him, effective informa-tion technology integration with the education system is the only way to bridge the urban-rural and digital

divide. That is what policymakers have to work on. “It requires time andvision to make the change possible.Since Graham Bell came up withtelephony, it took 100 years for the waythe technology has impacted our lives, the way we perceive the world,”Nadar said.

It was 35 years ago that Nadar hadleft his highly paid engineering job atDCM to set up his company in agarage, and no one could have pre-dicted that one day he would head oneof India’s leading IT companies.

Mail Today Bureau

Shiv Nadar,the founderof HCLTechnologies,pointed outthe need for an ITrevolution in the Indianeducationsystem.

Policymakersare finding thewrong solution

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QAMAR SIBTAIN

NEWS SPECIAL REPORT 19Mail Today, Saturday, January 28, 2012

THE mushrooming of pri-vate higher educationinstitutions in the countryhas made foreign collabo-ration a significant factorfor the institutions when it

comes to attracting prospectivestudents.

But how far do the collaborationsbenefit students in terms of landingbetter jobs and drawing fatter paypackages? Or is it just an admissiongimmick?

Friday’s India Today Aspire Educa-tion Summit 2012 saw some of the dis-tinguished academics and educatorsin the country giving a piece of theirmind on a topic that has already gen-erated much heat and dust in theacademic sector.

While the predominant sentimentamong speakers appeared to be infavour of international linkages,Dinesh Singh, vice-chancellor, DelhiUniversity, remained sceptical.

He articulated his reservationsrather vociferously, pointing out arather ineffective collaborationwhich IIT Delhi had with the ImperialCollege, London.

Singh narrated his own experienceof studying at the Imperial Collegefor his Ph.D, later coming back toIndia and taking up a teaching assign-ment at IIT.

“I could see the stark contrast,” saidSingh about the two institutions. “Theprogrammes at Imperial were out-standing. They met the needs of thesociety in diverse ways,” he said.“Great things have happened at IITstoo, but they have not come throughtie-ups,” he added.

Striking a pragmatic note, the vice-chancellor urged the delegates com-

prising academics, educationists anduniversity officials to do some soul-searching on the need for a foreigncollaboration. “We should look at theissue of why we need a tie-up and thephilosophy behind that,” he said.

According to him, going for foreignpartnerships makes sense only if theybenefit the society at large. “Thefocus of the tie-ups should be on howto solve urban transport, health andsanitation issues in our cities.”

Singh also advocated the need togo for more inter-university link-ages within the country, such asDelhi University and IIT Delhi havingmore frequent academic interac-tion, and professional linkages withJamia Millia Islamia and JawaharlalNehru University.

Vidya Yeravdekar, principal direc-

tor, Symbiosis International Univer-sity, Pune, however, did not have anydoubt over the merits of an interna-tional partnership.

“The staff room ambience changesthe moment we have internationalfaculty members. There is a higherlevel of motivation,” she said. “Theexposure which the students and fac-ulty members gain from a foreigncollaboration is immense.”

The time that a student spends onan international campus can alsoboost his/her resume.

“It is benefiting the students eco-nomically,” said Vijay Gupta, directorof G.D. Goenka World Institute. “Goodcompanies show greater interest instudents who have an internationalstudy programme.” He called forgreater public spending on educa-tion to raise India’s gross enrollmentratio to 30 per cent by 2030.

CURRICULA RESTRUCTURINGDelhi University will begin a four-yearundergraduate programme by 2013,Dinesh Singh said, adding that theuniversity was currently in theprocess of restructuring its academiccurricula. But he stopped short ofproviding details.

He dismissed a comparison thatDelhi University was toeing the Amer-ican model of education, where stu-dents have to study for four years toearn their undergraduate degree.

Great things havehappened at IITs, butthey have not comethrough tie-ups

— Dinesh Singh, Delhi University V-C’‘

Deemeduniversitiescan contributegreatly in lift-ing standardof education

— M. Ponnavaikko, SRM University

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Technologyis liberating.But it is notgoing toreplace theteacher

— Anand Sudarshan, Manipal Global Education

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World classeducationshould mean thatstudents areemployable

— S.S. Mantha, AICTE chairman

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The skillinequality inIndia is worsethan infra-structuralinequality

— Ashok Reddy, IIJT

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Engagingwith diasporais best way toallay braindrain appre-hensions

— Seeram Ramakrishna, National University of Singapore

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The teacheris not gettingcrediblecompensationand the job isnot coveted

— Krishna Kumar, ex-NCERT chairman

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What weneed is hands-on training. It’simportant tonurture theircreativity

— Suneel Galgotia, Galgotias University

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We aretrainingpeople in stuffthey don’tneed and verybadly at that

— Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Naukri.com

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EDUCATION POLITICS

By Mail Today Bureauin New Delhi

DU V-C trashes foreign tie-ups

Rekha Purie, chairperson of the Vasant Valley Schoolmanaging committee, with the award winners of the India

Today Aspire Education Summit 2012. Mrs Purie is flankedby filmmaker Prakash Jha on her right and SRM University

pro-Chancellor Ravi Pachamoothoo on her left.

RAMESH SHARMA