There has always been a perennial debate on educational reforms in India. And it has been perennial because the infrastructure and the resources allocated have always been on a different plane from each other, not to mention the other minor factors such as beaurocratic delays and red tape which function at the topmost level of their efficiency. The results do not startle anyone.Around 20% children devoid of their primary education and 15% do not see the secondary school.
Since the platform was corrupt, the problem got compounded at the undergraduate and post-graduate level. About a decade back, the private sector foresaw an untapped business opportunity in educational institutions and took a plunge resulting in the construction of professional colleges wherever they could lay their hands on. If the figures are to be counted for, then there are close to 100 private engineering colleges in Uttar Pradesh alone producing lakhs of engineers per annum yet the industry cries out loud being under a technical talent crunch. The blaming goes ceaselessly but no answers are sought out. And this is partly due to the fact that no layers are exposed beyond a certain limit as that would expose the naked truth that is draped in careful bandage of white lies.
Why is it that even after having more than 1000 engineering colleges in India producing more than 4 lakh engineers per annum, the government feels that more colleges are required? This is because the private institutions are not only having a major chunk of the so-called unemployable engineers, but also because the government cannot do anything about them. These institutions although being under the umbrella of governing bodies like the AICTE lack the infrastructure that is a pre-requisite for a development which is not only theoretical but also applicatory.
The full blame cannot be put on the college authorities too. With a handful of corporate houses investing properly in education, the burden of providing adequate facilities falls directly on a bunch of small business owners who form trusts and committees to run the colleges and to fill their pockets both at the same time. Although the AICTE norms are met, it is usually too less for the students who are shelling out a hefty amount for a professional degree.
Starting with inadequate infrastructure and untrained faculty, the problem gets aggravated at every level. Such colleges have passed out students as faculty members who don’t even have a master’s degree. Moreover, with no immediate authority to exercise control on these institutions, they are slowly turning out to be intellectual black holes of India with a long chain of corruption embedded firmly at its root.
All this while, the government plans to build new IIT’s and IIM’s to meet the ever growing pressure from the industry.
A better solution would be to meet the needs in an evolved manner. Institutions of the genre of IIT’s should be kept at the top most level of the educational pyramid with the autonomy that they enjoy, so that the burden does not fall directly on the shoulders of the technical capitals of India.
Tier 2 institutions could be the REC’s and the NIT’s and they should be brought up to the level of IIT’s in terms of improved infrastructure and research facilities.
The Tier 3 colleges could be the private engineering colleges which should have some amount of government interference and investment. Construction of new colleges should be checked and the allocated resources should be directed to the already constructed colleges which are taking undue advantage of their autonomous nature and are busy sucking money from students in the name of an engineering degree. The point is to capitalize on the fact that new colleges started from scratch would eat up lot more resources than these already running institutions.
The ultimate goal is to have a new educational order where all the tiers are aiming to reach at the next level under the eyes of a watchdog so that the future of India is not left at the mercy of those who are converting the educational institutions into money minting machines.
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