Someone ditched homework!

This is for all of you who seem to be pretty overwhelmingly knocked out by a 'Sea-bull' frenzy. I would like to apprise you of a few things that you have very conveniently afforded to miss. The revolutionary fervor and the sense of urgency to provoke the academia out of its stupor is indeed admirable. However, instead of a Jacobin 100 day agenda, this calls for a more clear, consistent and systematic approach.

1. The debate for pedagogy, rote learning, harassment of students and the trauma is long overdue. The trauma and pressure would continue to haunt us students (I admit it!) till the time there is competition for limited resources. The learning resources and infrastructure in this country are limited and so just changing the percentage system to a percentile system wont do much good. Even the proper distribution of quality institutions can only help to a degree. Example: The CAT continues to be the most competitive examination.

2. The admission criteria for almost all our examinations including those for the IITs, IIMs and the NITs are objective and far from the educators' discretion. Unlike the GRE or GMAT, judgment or overall opinion dont hold ground here. It is fair for the simple reason of our diversity in terms of demographics, location, language, culture, economic background and work ethos. I fail to understand how a single board can bring any change except by stagnating as a counterfeit centralized body. The system must be based on broad evaluation. But our pillars of trust, fairness and honesty arent so strong yet.

3. The real source of trauma is that the infrastructure is in shambles. The teaching quality is pathetic. Tell me a guy who would want to become a school teacher in India. The real challenge for making education enjoyable, clean and a profession commanding respect would be to improve quality of all affecting variables. The Higher Education too is in variant moods. 15 years as the Chairman of the UGC and a plea for a 5 year extension, wasnt enough for an old gentleman like Mr. Yashpal to improve its functioning. Now he recommends to scrap the commission. Sensible and efficient regulation is misunderstood with over regulation.

4. The logic of autonomy, diversity, experimentation and freedom is working against the logic of centralization, standardization and curriculum co-ordination. A bold 100 day hue and cry is just not the answer.

5. From my personal experience: (I am sure even you have experienced this) The plight of a National Institute of Technology, where I study is stark and shameful. The teaching quality is far below an adjective 'average' and probably even lower than 'poor'. Worse is the case with general schools and private colleges. And this is when the system is regulated. Imagine the corruption, inefficiency, nepotism and opportunity hoarding which would run rampant in a so called free and unregulated system. Every school cant be a DPS; every institute cant be an IIT or IIM; every university cant be a Harvard or Oxford. FDI is welcome. But a dozen new IITs and IIMs is a joke! What is needed is a persistent and coherent vision for reassessing, redefining and reforming the basic process of teaching-learning called education.