You have put the entire issue in its true perspective! Our earlier education system succeeded in producing scientists like Sir J.C.Bose,Sir C.V.Raman,Sir P.C.Roy and their like some of who were village schoold product who rose to conquer the world and present system has totally failed to promote academic excellence.
I think it's high time I illustrated what I wanted to say.Pl. forgive me if I am abit late in reaching the point.But I can't help.
For some time let's talk cricket.
T20s-Ruling the day
ODIs-somewhere midway
Test matches-Endangered Species.
I think the masses would have observed the obsequies of cricket by now, had it limited itself to test matches only.But it evolved itself,money flowed in and modified it further giving rise to gala T20 events like IPL and Champions legue etc.Now everybody says cricket has been commercialised.But I observe that nobody misses any chance to see the huge number of huge sixes that are hit in such tournaments.If money is flowing to make you see reverse sweeps,longest sixes,behind-the-wicket fours etc. what is the harm? My point is that,fight match fixing and similar negatives but please don't say that money has not brought in any good things.money has modified,improvised and upgraded the game and in a nutshell helped the game a great deal in keeping itself alive.
Now let us come back to our point.
What has money done to education?If people have earned profits out of it,that is not without contributions to the forward march of education.Profit maximization will not always come without improvement in quality.You provide A.C. class rooms,high paid experts to teach students,hygenic surroundings,quality cafetaria,best of play grounds in schools and you earn a profit out of it.I don't see any harm.Until sometime back in time,had anybody heard about computer simulation and modelling to teach students?But you have an option now.You have remote video classes,e-learning materials and what not.Is that all without money?I don't see anything detrimental.Of course along with all good things some drawbacks will creep in.But we have to fight them and not the onward march of educational evolution.In this everchanging world cricket and education and everything else will have to keep transforming from one form to another to make itself lively,interesting,gripping.
Now an obvious question surfaces.Can Cricket and education be talked of as similar things?I don't find any reason why we can't.Its more our stereotype thinking than anything else,or to make it abit graceful,our devotion to the sacred realms of education,that stops us from making such comparisons.Sacredness lies in our hearts and soul,nobody can take them away from us but we can't forget what the likes of EDUCOMP have contributed to education even while making profit.
Thanks for providing fresh insights on this subject but the central question still reamins unanswered which was whether private capital has really been promoting the cause of academic excellence?Providing A.C class rooms,high paid experts and so on really does not automatically translate to higher quality quotient! Your comparison of cricket with education is very apt in a negative sense as both of these are sadly not in their true places today! The validity of an idea has to be judged purely on its ability to pass through the test of rationality and logicality!With all the so-called original ideas being implemented today in the field of education India's failure to make much headway is well documented and well- known.The other day I chanced upon an article by a former Oxford professor who was lamenting the poor research culture among the Indian teaching community and gave a lurid account of means adopted to get Phds in our country.The list of 100 premier universities of the world prepared by UNESCO does not have the name of a single Indian university!!!You have named only EDUCOMP but what about hundreds of shady insititutions whch have mushroomed in different corners of the country which have been reducing education to a mockery!!
Thanks alot Mr. Mukherjee for streamlining the discussion and providing us all a chance to share your repository of knowledge and excellent choice of words you make while writing.
As of the discussion,I would like for a while to go back to Sumit Gajanan Tambe's original thread statement which meant education has become a business.Though the statement doesn't say this, it's quite obvious that the term 'business' has been coined to indicate the negatives.Now, why is business such a villain?Why we utter words like,"Everything has become a business."? Is business such a bad thing after all?What would an honest businessman try to achieve?'Profit maximization',as you would state,and to it I would add,'through honest means'.So if I say profit maximization through honest means is not a bad thing ,probably nobody would contradict.On the opposite,the same feet achieved through dishonesty is not at all acceptable.So where is the problem?With the business or with the dishonesty in the business?Goes without saying anything.So, shall we wind up the business? Or act as duty bound soldiers to root out the rampant evils in the business?
Drawing from what you stated,shall we try to stop the flow of private capital altogether or shall we try to steer it in the right track,through formulation and implementation of relevant,proper,correct policies?Since we have not been able to make much headway in the field of education,shall we cease to supply original and modern ideas which require involvement of capital,or shall we retreat to Gurukul days in search of academic excellence.
Developed countries have not produced premier universities by adhering to older and cheaper means of education.They have dazzled the world through their intellectual brilliance by building educational infrastructures which employ ultramodern techniques of research and this has been possible only by riding on the waves of economic developement.
So,probably, we would be better off doing the business than winding it up and hopefully we also would be able to become so wise as not to accept expenditure without improvement in quality.
Regards
I am very grateful to you and do appreciate your sincere comcerns for the cause of education in our country.I must appreciate your role in creating the right vibes for a very meaningful and productive discussion on this subject.Surely I would come up with my reply in the later part of the day and thanks and regards!
Going through your very detailed and well-reasoned reply I find more convergence than divergence in our respective views.As I alluded in one of my earlier posts to the existence of two kinds of business models by referring to the enlightened and highly desirable practices of Infosys led by its Chairman emiratus Mr.Narayan Murthy and the one adopted by Reddy brothers - the mining barons of Karnatka.As you must be aware that Infosys as a business entity has made signal contribution to the growth of knowledge capital of India by creating various trusts promoting education and training as part of its discharge of corporate responsibilities towards our society whereas the profits made by the Reddy brothers go into making jewellery offering to Tirupati Temple! From the very outset I never indicated any visceral opposition to entry of private capital in the field of education.Nor do I consider business to be a dirty word and make any attempt to project it as a villain while glorifying the saintly role of the government.But the need of the hour is surely regulation.If we can have a regulataory regime for power,insurance etc.Why can't we have it in the field of education too.I am in favour of enforcement of strict standards of quality and accountability ensuring fair play to all the stakeholders.
Thanks alot Mr. Mukherjee for your conclusive post,if I may say so. And I think that's it.Probably we have reached a well balanced ,appropriate and ultimate statement through our discussions and perhaps that's what should be the goal of any meaningful discussion.Thanks once again.Hope to meet you on some other thread.
It has been a great pleasure sharing our thoughts on this issue with you.Thanks a lot and hoping to have many more such pleasurable exchanges! All the very best!
