Posts Tagged ‘India’


October 12th, 2009

Ruminations of students-past and present

So far, we have used this space to highlight issues pertaining to education, voiced from our perspective. It is time to create some space for the primary stakeholders of our education system, its end consumer- the students. We will run a sporadic series of write-ups as reflections and think-alouds from our students, college-going students, to begin with, as they have a certain level of maturity that comes from retrospection and exposure to diverse education formats.

Over to you guys…

-X-X-X-

This article has been long due. I have always been searching for a medium to express myself, my perceptions and notions about studying in a foreign land.

Like hundreds of Indian students each year, I came to the US to pursue a Masters degree from a US university. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about the words of Prof. Vohra, one of the strictest professors in the college. He had written my recommendations and before leaving India I met him. His parting words were – “You are in a strange dilemma now, if you stay here with your family and friends, you’ll always think about the education and career you could have got while in the US; if you do go, you’ll always be worried about your parents well-being”.

To go or not to go

After completing my Bachelors in Engineering in India, I had three avenues to select from:

1. Work in India for a software company and get paid peanuts,

2. Prepare for CAT along with 200,000 students for about 2000 seats; or

3. Apply to a foreign university and force my parents to spend a fortune.

One day, while working with TCS (one of the foremost technology companies in India), I got a call from a close friend who was pursuing Masters from Oxford University. She said to me, “In India, we will never be appreciated for our capabilities; we will end up appearing for exams designed to manage crowds, a 3 hour exam would seal our, destiny. Apply to a foreign university, at least they will look into your past experience, skills and knowledge base before rejecting you”.

The decision was finally made. I had to get through a good US university. The application process was stressful, tough and kept me awake many a nights. I appeared for the GRE, TOEFL, prepared a Statement of Purpose, resume, got Letters of recommendations from my Professors, selected appropriate Universities for my chosen course, prepared the application packet and when the final calls started coming, selected the University I wanted to join…. phew.

US – perception vs. reality

People feel that US is the land of dreams, huge salaries and comfortable living. But that’s half the truth. The salaries paid are no doubt much more than the ones anywhere in the world, but then, so are the expenses. The US is a consumerist society, and the concept of saving does not exist, atleast did not exist till this current recession. I know many people who came here with a rosy portrait of America, but within a few days the reality of life started sinking in. Living hundreds of miles away from home, family and friends just takes its toll. Believe me when I say, you may be the best cook in the world but you just can’t have food cooked by yourself every single day. When you have to repair your own bicycle, you miss the days when you could have paid Rs.10 and got the whole thing done by someone else. Cleaning my house every weekend has helped me develop even more respect for my mother.

US vs. India – an unfair but unavoidable comparison

At times I see myself as a sales man who has come to the US to sell an image of my country and to clear the minds of the populace of the wrong notions and ideas about India. My nationalism has grown manifolds during this period and I keep comparing the US system of education to its India counterpart; trying to defend the Indian system. The one question that I specifically mull is that was it justified preparing for years at a stretch for an Indian IIT or IIM, or spend a year completing the application process for admission here?

The best part about my class here is that I find myself discussing, arguing and working on assignments with students from all over the world. Students have been handpicked from across the globe to enhance and enrich the “class experience”. I have learned a lot from them – be it difficult topics in probability, their cultures, traditions, religion or how to give a presentation. But this experience has also made me realize that India is many countries in one. It has a desert, snow covered mountains, beaches and dense forests. The language the people speak and the clothes they wear changes as we travel from one state into another. If I would have joined an IIM I would be sitting next to the smartest people from a huge country with a population more than 1 billion.

I think the major reason why US universities are better is because of the level of research that is being pursued here, which is supported by US industries and universities; known for recruiting some of the finest brains from all over the world. But then again the Indians are in no way inferior to anyone in the whole world. I feel the main difference here is the research grants that the universities get from government and industry. The Indian government just doesn’t have the money to sponsor huge projects that would be instrumental in shaping the future of the country. This is where the Private sector should step in. We are ranked high in the service sector but when it comes to the manufacturing sector, India is far behind in the global race. The private sector in India needs to invest large sums of money in research so that we can have comparable cutting edge research work being pursued in our country. With the right impetus, India might turn out to be the place where foreign students pay huge sums of money to come and study.

I feel responsible to take back all I have learnt here, back to my country. I dream of an India, where the magnitude and quality of research work is unparalleled, where people from around the world come for education, where everyone’s literate, a country which the world respects not only for its prowess in the services sector but in the manufacturing sector as well. All we need is to work with a vision, together as a country and I am sure that day is not far.

Contributed by Chinmay Dubey
M.S. Operations Research (2008-09)
Dept. of Industrial & Systems Engineering
Georgia Tech, Atlanta (GA) – USA

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October 1st, 2009

Eat, Pray, Love

India is a land of many, many contradictions. Since ancient times foreigners have been fascinated by India who have come here to find themselves, or religion, or something equally important.

Continuing with this tradition, writer & journalist Elizabeth Gilbert travelled to India during a difficult period in her personal life in an attempt to find herself, spirituality and love. Her memoires are published in her highly successful & acclaimed 2006 spiritual travelogue named “Eat, Pray, Love” (the book was on the New York Times Best Seller list for 110 weeks).

A few days ago, Hollywood star Julia Roberts arrived in India to shoot Ryan Murphy’s screenplay adaptation of the book. The filming of the movie is taking place at “Ashram Harimandir” in Pataudi, Haryana – 40 Km from Gurgaon. The Ashram is a picturesque 25-acre campus, which houses a temple, an educational institution for higher learning, residences for students & an old persons’ home.

Despite the fascination India holds for foreigners and its reputation for being a destination where one can find piece of mind, spirit and body; Indians seem to find their own country as a place where they lose themselves in the daily humdrum of life and living. We are so busy with our daily lives that we don’t question contradictions and idiosyncrasies in our systems and behaviours.

Included in this contradiction is the decision of the Ashram authorities to shut the educational institution for a period of 2-3 weeks for the filming of the movie. The authorities of the educational institution seem to have forgotten that their primary job is to teach the students and to prepare them with life skills relevant to their chosen fields of specialization. In turn students also devote significant time and effort mastering the syllabi and sharpening their skills. The closing of the institution for something as trivial as a filming of a movie seems to be an extreme injustice to the students. This is specially so when the primary argument given by almost all educational institutions in India – for not changing/ improving existing teaching learning practices and/or adopting best practice – is work overload and paucity of time.

How is it that work overload and unavailability of time are not factors considered while making the decision to suspend classes? In recent months, a number of schools have temporarily suspended classes – some of them being the most prestigious and best in India – as a precautionary measure against H1N1 (Swine Flu). Now, closure of an educational institution as a precaution against swine flu makes perfect sense – but this does not take away the schools responsibility to take measures to compensate for lost time. Most schools, especially when it comes to their senior school and students who will be sitting for the external board exams, will put in a programme which will make up for lost time. This brings me to the point that I would like to make – where there is a will, there is a way and where there is a need, solutions are found and in these situations constraints are not impediments but catalysts for creative solutions. When it comes to our education system, we need to recognise the dire need for bringing about positive change to make the system more relevant to the requirements of the 21st century (there is an urgent need and ways to address the need must be found). Mr. Kapil Sibal’s reform push have provided the thrust for change; the other stakeholders now must to do their bit to ensure that there is a positive outcome to these initiatives.

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September 25th, 2009

Festivals -multi-sensorial, educational experience for children

In both the countries of my residence, it is the beginning of the festival season, that goes well into the New Year. Adults approach festivals either as harbinger of joy, laughter, socio-cultural interactions or the “been there (many times over), done that (many times over)” syndrome, harbinger of the holiday blues. For kids it is fun, fUN and FUN, year after year, after year-a time for revelling in colours, lights and sounds.

In Canada, there is a wide range of festivals from pumpkin picking to apple picking and Halloween to Santa Parades. There is an amazing sense of celebration, multicultural and cross-cultural, that engulfs the country and its people, making the most of the outdoor life before the onset of severe cold. The Fall Season itself is a multi-sensorial experience with the leaves showing off their richest hues, farmers harvesting their best yields, people savouring all sorts of freshly baked pies, music, theatre and film festivals dotting the city’s calendar. Special efforts are made to make the festivities child-centric, to maximise their sensorial experience. Schools design curriculum around these events and teachers plan out students’ learning using the festive environment. For instance, the autumn leaf can be an interdisciplinary unit in itself. The vibrant shades and shapes of leaf can be a lesson in art. The falling of the leaf and life cycle of trees and its adaptation to its environment can be a lesson in science. The song “Autumn Leaves Are Falling Down” by Shari and Jerry Tallon can be a lesson in music while early Math is easily discernable in counting and patterning of the leaves. Foliage can be an interesting road to traverse in Social Studies comparing foliage in different places – Canada and another place. Nature walk or simply jumping on the pile of fallen autumn leaves can be a piece of physical education.

ram-leelaIn India, the whole year is marked with festivals but they are in very quick succession between September and January. The sights, sounds and flavours that mark Indian festivities make them memorable experiences. I recently took my three-year old to the neighbourhood Ramlila, a dramatic re-enactment of the epic Ramayana that goes on for 9 to 11 days. Ramlila, in itself, is a multidisciplinary and cultural unit. There is a script, prose and poetry, on which the drama is based; the rich genre of folklore and mythology. There is Math in the measurement – area of the place, seating arrangements to be made, tickets, costs etc. There is a huge component of Art – both visual and performing arts. The science of sound and light is most obvious; social studies is prominent in the study of land and its culture.

Not only do festivals provide a learning opportunity and multi sensorial experience; but it also provides the opportunity of strengthening our family ties, in an era when the hurried living is taking a toll on the very values and virtues that these occasions celebrate. For adults, these celebrations may be routine or ritualistic but for children there is novelty in all these festivities. We can infect them with our cynicism or joie de vivre. The choice is ours.

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August 18th, 2009

To Learn and not to Yearn

Taking a different track today, I am a little amused by two contradictory pieces in Sunday TOI. I usually merely skim and scan through the newspaper, but I found myself glued to these two taking in every printed word.

The first one pertained to the recent SRK incident at Newark Airport, where a senior Indian police officer, agreed that it was racial profiling but candidly admired the functioning of the US police without political interference wishing that he and his juniors had the same autonomy and work culture. The second piece has delivered coup de grace for a certain senior journalist, whose editorials I always read. The scribe pronounces the NRI an “intellectual nuisance” who needs to be “royally ignored”.

True that in the metro towns of India, generally speaking, the NRI is no longer an object of reverence and his yearly gifts are not eagerly awaited. But what about the rest of India, the major chunk of what makes up India, exemplified by the Doaba region in the north and Kerala in the South. Non-resident Indians are supporting the economies there, more than any Union or State budgets.

Even in the metros, although the populace no longer yearns for the material goods from a non-resident Indian, the latter has very important lessons to teach the resident Indian of the likes of Mr Xenophobia in the garb of a journalist. These are some of them:

1. A non-resident Indian has made himself successful in a foreign land with little or no personal support system by his sheer grit and determination. How many resident Indians can claim to have achieved success on their own and not through nepotism or favouritism of some kind? The ratio between the two will be pretty skewed in favour of the former.

2. A non-resident Indian has learnt to respect and follow laws of the land of his residence, whether out of fear of consequences or out of moral uprightedness. How many resident Indians can I claim to know, who in their daily lives do not violate or try to circumvent some law? Negligible.

3. A non-resident Indian has learnt to keep public and common spaces clean. What the resident Indian has done to our public spaces and monuments is pretty evident. Any place in India can be converted, at the drop of a hat, into a public lavatory or garbage dump.

4. A non-resident Indian pays his taxes, by and large, so that it can pay for social security of those in need. A resident Indian finds ingenious ways of evading taxes to hoard more for himself and his family, turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the needy, visible and audible, everywhere in India.

5. A non-resident is extremely supportive of his brethren in the foreign land of his residence. A resident Indian has raised the crab mindset to an art, to be applied indiscriminately. Whether it is the famous sons of Dhirubhai or the not-so-famous family aptly depicted in the soaps, everyone seems to enjoy family bickering. And don’t even get me started on how a resident Indian treats foreigners!

I am not sure what inspired or instigated Mr Know-it-all scribe to write something like that but I am pretty sure that he did not reread it. If he had, he would have acknowledged that for resident Indians, although there is nothing to yearn but certainly a whole lot to learn from a Non-resident Indian.

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April 20th, 2009

We dont need no education

“School asks parents to stay away from media”

What does this headline tell us about our values?

Last weeks addition of a daily newspaper, the Mail Today carried an interesting article on a Delhi School’s response to a parents’ resistance to a hike in school fees. As per the article, the school had asked both parents and students to sign undertakings restricting them from speaking about the matter to third parties.

The article also stated that such strong-arm tactics forcing or coercing anyone to enter into an agreement of this nature is illegal and the Directorate of Education is contemplating action against the school. Common sense – is it not??

But the larger question that we need to answer is – What ails our educational institutions and education system? A school is a place where we send our children – our future generation – to get an “education”. In my books – some of the essential components of education are developing a moral character (i.e. being able to distinguish between right and wrong, respect for the law, honesty, etal) in addition to learning the normal subjects. However, if our educational institutions themselves display lack these essential charecteristics (as seems to be the case with the educational institution mentioned in this article) – how do we expect them to develop the moral fibre in our children.

Then why would we want to send our children to a school like this? I surely would not classify this school as a good school! Then the answer must be either (1) there are shortage of schooling options available in the area, or (2) we as parents and as a society, have become immune and consider such indiscretions minor and not worth our action – both scenarios being a sad reflection of who we have become.

In some respects, India is not shining at all!!

In this context, I would like to tell you about an inspiring story of a family of modest means – who had the courage of their convictions to stand up for their principles. Believing that their two daughters deserved the best education their money could buy, the family put them in a respected private school. However, when one day, the school in its infinite wisdom, and for reasons best known to them, decided to force every parent to buy a dictionary for each child that studied in the school – the parents of the two girls (despite being counselled to the contrary by friends and family) decided to withdraw both their children from the school rather than be coerced into buying multiple copies of a book they did not require.

Both girls have grown up to be excellent human beings and great contributors to society (both are teachers / educationalists who try and instil progressive and positive qualities in the children they teach / interact with). Kudos to the parents, who have led and continue to lead their children by way of example!

I wonder why we do not hear of more instances like this,
to inspire the rest of us to do the same.

Why are most of us not willing to take a stand against excesses and injustice being done against our person?  What role does our education institution play in us becoming or not becoming the contributing citizens of the world? What role do our parents play in our growing up with good moral character and a sense of humanity?

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