Indian Education - Boon or Bane?

Has the education made me a better person? Or made more of a robot out of me?

This is a primary question that everyone should be asking themselves at the beginning, end and even amidst the process of receiving the education. Is the education system in India really all that it is made out to be?

Now I know that this topic has been beaten to death especially since the last two years what with Aamir Khan on an education reform movement and Kapil Sibal asininely tinkering with the education system and every bit and piece making headlines now a day. But what the hell… this is my blog and I will be damned if I don’t get to ramble on it.

Although, globally, Indian students are considered amongst the best brains. The higher education facilities in India are amongst the best that there are. But somewhere in our education system, we kill the spirit of the students. We kill the initiative taking powers of the students. If we look at our educational system, we go by a set rule. The classes are deemed to take place for certain hours of the day during which, there would be a division in the form of time tables. The teachers or professors as the case may be, will come, read something from some material, give a pop quiz or a theoretical assignment and then leave. And then the next professor will come. And then the next day will dawn and so on. Then there would be examinations twice or thrice a term. And as is typical of most of the students no one, barring a few outliers, will study beforehand. Hence, all the cramming will be done on the day before the exam with feverish passion, roaming the corridors of hostels or sitting in home sipping tea/coffee and burning the proverbial midnight oil, students trying to cram everything till the second before question paper is placed before them. Did you just not smile reminiscing about similar moments of your life? Then there need be no more proof that this is a typical experience in the life of a student.

But has anyone ever stopped and questioned if this is actually a right thing to do? Is it really necessary to have papers twice a term? What if the paper does not merit twice or thrice examining the student? Will the system be changed? What if a course titled Advanced Oral Communication requires that the best way to judge a student would be to check how well he can communicated orally? Would the ancient ones be awoken from their gargantuan slumber to stroke the embers of the goblet of fire or would this be yet another example of requests falling on deaf ears? Or would the PGP office say, yet again in a deep oratory mellifluousness, “Keh diya na… Bas keh Diya”?

And what about the content of dribble that we dare call as our curriculum? We teach students how to write e-mails in corporate communications class but we are not able to teach them to keep their cell phones silent during lectures. We are teaching them transportation problems and assignment problems, but we are still not managing to impart the importance of being punctual in attending lectures or submitting assignments in due time. Oh sure we get to know what balance sheet is (though we can never balance the two sides), some professional and serious sounding business jargon to carry us through most of the conversations, some bits and pieces of knowledge that we hope would be useful once we get to the jobs.

When I was in school, I was a very shy and introverted person (that’s not to say that I am not now… just that I have upgraded myself over the years and learnt how to be more open and enjoyable with friends around). But I was not always like that. I remember bits and pieces and moi ma tells me that I used to be a spirited child in my primary years and that I used to be extremely full of energy, extroverted and highly energetic. So what changed me over the years? I will say the educational system in my school where the primary school teachers were not comfortable with children questioning their authority, receiving apt witty remarks from a 3-4 year old kid and the problem of having to miss their afternoon nap in the class because of one hyper-active kid who would not lie down even after being fed a whole bottle of valium. Ok that I am kidding and that I was never fed valium. But yea that was true that my teachers were frustrated with me because I would not let them rest. Peter Senge (1990) maintains that we learn only when the experience is followed by immediate feedback. Hence, the feedback of knitted brows and frown on the face, instead of crow’s feet, were enough of a feedback for me to deter me from doing such things over the years and be made more of an obedient student.

Then came engineering college… and boy what a bliss it was. Of course the first year ragging and adjustment issues apart. But that was truly the first stage of the education that I really enjoyed. Probably because our branch was a relatively smaller one so the entire group of students were pretty close knit (of course we now have some outliers but where do we don’t have them?) Even though most of the education was more of a rote of a fixed curriculum set by ancient professors and studied through copies of textbooks and notes prepared by some diligent students (Thanks neetu, priyanka, lohani and all hostellers for question papers). But more importantly, at that stage I truly realized the fun of being with friends, how one learns more from friends than from profs, how several long lasting friendships can be wrought out of simple things such as having birthdays on same or nearby dates.

During the management education, I believed that I learnt a lot. And not just about balance sheet, or 5 S (Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu, Shitsuke), or how about Pavlov’s experiment with dog and its saliva, or even about financial markets, difference between debt and equity, complex macroeconomic models or any such thing. The most important learning came in the people handling skills, as a management education should impart; even though there was no formal education in it and the entire curricula was to be learnt through a practical experience and the only test for the same would be in real life scenarios. For instance, knowing the name of the peon of the PGP office is not going to get you any 50 basis point reduction in the cost of debt (Talk about being arbit!) but it would certainly help you get an advance copy of the next term time table and allow you to plan your leaves accordingly. Or asking a mess worker about his life in general is not going to drastically improve the quality of food but at least you will get the best that there could be from amongst them.

And that’s the kind of thing that an education is supposed to teach, practical things. And not something that we can just learn and forget. An education is not supposed to make you like a robot, ready to do work at the command of a master or numerical spout the value of pi at the behest of a command. Education should make you realize the significance of pi as well.

But in our haste to provide this hardcore knowledge to the students, we often miss out on the softer aspects. Ironically, most of the B-schools conduct GD and PI in their selection process just to see the soft skills of the candidate and forget to hone those skills in candidate once they enter the hallowed portals of the prestigious institutions. In that context, lesser known institutions still have crowd which has better soft skills to make up for the non-presence of the brand names.

Images courtesy: www.gallery.ca, www.cypasia.org, newamericanuniversity.asu.edu, ccdaag.org.uk, www.clickjobs.com.

Would you prefer an ebook to paper book?

Got this very interesting article in today's paper. Since I love reading a lot, I could not help but share this article. The original can be found here (among many other places I am sure).

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There are very few battles in the technology space that actually make sense. The Plasma vs. LCD display was a good one till it lasted; the HD-DVD Vs BluRay was plain stupid; the three-way skirmish between gaming consoles Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 is exhausting and the all new smartphone OS war is actually moving from dull to a pretty good slugfest. But rarely does technology wage a war against the old guard – truly established old school vs. the all new wiz bang of gadgetry. Yet, a classic battle of epic proportions is taking place right now – Ebooks vs. paper books!

We’ve had paper book fans talk about how they’ll never switch and there have been reams of columns on why Ebooks can be a better experience if only you would give them a shot. Fortunately this little war will be played on many fronts – consumer preference being just one of them.

Those who swear by paper books usually move into emotional and nostalgia mode. They seem to be incapable of reading without the heady smell of paper, the melodious rustle of turning a page, the olfactory experience of fresh ink, the eureka fact that their paper book will never suddenly run out of battery, that they can read while their aircraft is taking off or touching down, that they can hand them down to their friends and family and mostly that there is no strain of looking at a screen for a long period of time.

On the other hand, Ebook warriors seem to be getting a new arsenal everyday. Ebook prices are lower, they are a much greener option with no paper, no distribution, no warehousing, no retail space being used. Paper books are heavy and bulky and you can’t carry too many, while you can store thousands of books on one device, search, mark, look up definitions, make notes and share book passages on Twitter and Facebook in a second. Most importantly, you can set up font size and readability levels that are perfect for you.

Things seemed fairly well balanced when suddenly, Amazon announced that Ebooks now out-sell hardcover books by a factor of 1:2. All hell broke loose with typical hogwash headlines like ‘the beginning of the end’ and ‘it’s all over’ appearing across world media. Is it true then? Are the days for paper books truly numbered?

It has been about three years since the first real Ebook readers appeared. Prices since have fallen by almost 80 per cent, it’s the largest selling device on Amazon, almost every major book seller and consumer electronic maker has a model or two available, authors now release books directly to the public, bypassing the publisher and distributor, the iPad and other devices are pretty good Ebook readers on their own, thus creating some incredible momentum. It would seem that paper books are truly on their way to being dead and buried, right? Wrong! Sales of paper books have actually increased by quite a bit in the last three years. Some say by more than 40 per cent.

It seems that reading itself is staging a huge comeback and it’s now being fuelled on both sides by this very war. You try a Ebook on your phone and suddenly rediscover your passion for reading. Rather than watch a movie on a flight, you now read a book. You curl up with a book instead of sitting up at night watching television. Reading is going through a rediscovery revolution like never before.

Unfortunately it may not be all that balanced in the future! Here are a few controversial predictions. First, in about a year or so, Ebook readers will be given away free. Price are already at the sub $49-100 mark and it is not difficult for retailers to give them away with a contract where you promise to buy 12 Ebooks over a six month period. Second, prices of Ebooks will fall dramatically. This will put a lot of pressure on paper book prices and will make entire industries like paper and publishing go into a tailspin. Libraries will close and second-hand bookshops will be more like antique stores. None of this sounds good for an industry that has been there for literally thousands of years and is an invaluable resource.

There’s a lot to preserve here, a lot to cherish and not give up on. For a gadgety column, this may be a oxymoronic wish – but I really do hope that this time, technology will not triumph in this battle of the heart and mind. Otherwise, as a friend of mine once joked, in the near future we may all be reading an Ebook while keeping a piece of paper alongside. To crush at regular intervals and nostalgically relive the feel and smell of reading a real paper book!

Top 5 paradoxes in Indian Telly

We have all seen our fair share of the telly dramas. Be them the Ekta Kapoor variety or the Adhikari Brother’s ‘Comedy’. Whether or not you want to, there are some things that you just can’t escape. Meeting distant elderly relatives is one thing. Other thing is watching the prime time soaps, which your mother and sister are convinced teach us all a thing or two about the life. I have had my fair share of this serial watching as well. And over two decades of this accumulated experience has confused me to some aspects which are mind-boggling at the best. I am surprised that the scientists have not pounded on these ‘paradoxes’ of the Indian Telly. But for the benefit of the public in general, I will list the top three here:

Inexplicably, Mangalsutra, bangles and lamps are amongst the most favored items of the directors when they want to show an ill omen. The mangalsutra, when snatched from the neck in the most brutal fashion; while a theft or during the protagonist planning a revenge or something; will break at the clasp, be intact and then be stored in a jewellery box. However, the same mangalsutra, when showing ill omen; when gets slightly entangled in the folds of the tent cloth that the protagonists wear will break from all possible sides accompanied by a close-up of all the beads rolling around on the floor. Similar is the case with bangles; glass bangles when normally taken off (no matter how brutally) will never break but for an ill omen, even the slightest pull will break them asunder and draw blood from the wrist.

News channels and babas often discuss the theory of reincarnation and how you need to do good deeds in life to be reincarnated as a human in the next life. Going by that theory, all the actors must be saints and angels. Out TV channels are way ahead than just theorizing, though. Several instances are known wherein a person has been reborn with full memories of what they were and what they used to do in the life gone by. The same concept has also been liberally explored in various Bollywood movies as well.

Another perplexing thing that I have observed that however time passes by, the characters remain ageless as ever. Even after the much hyped 5 and 20 year jumps in the soap, the only visible difference between the appearances is addition of a spectacle to the costume list and a couple of streaks of while hairs, donning more elegant (or so they think) clothes while the next younger generation to follow will wear an ever more increasing set of ridiculous clothes. Sometimes, when a younger character grows up; the older version seems younger than what the character was 5 years back (Look at Baalika Vadhu). Otherwise, they are physically fit as hell and somehow escape the nature’s weathering of people in terms of wrinkles, pot bellies, or sagging skin. Guess the folks at fair and lovely, no marks and anti-ageing cream can learn a thing or two from the Telly people.

The most wondrous of things of all is that whatever be the time of the day, whatever is the work that these people are doing, whatever situation they are in; these charming folks are ALWAYS wearing a makeup. While normal people like you and me would sweat a little bit when working in kitchen or doing a couple of rounds in gym; they will always make everything look like a breeze and perform everything with such panache; makes us feel like lay morons. Even while sleeping, the wives will don full makeup and their Kanjeevaram Sarees with the full entourage. Surprisingly so, they remain as wonderfully made up as ever, even when they wake up from the bed or are being served a bed tea. Unless of course the aim is to portray them as being guilty of having slept, then they will be disheveled as us mortals. Other than that, there seems to be no normal people around on these soaps. But I guess the ordinary people are not glamorous enough to be shown on telly when all the unglamorous people watching the TV want to see is a sharply dressed vamp, with couple of inches long weird bindi on their forehead.

The last one is something that I have seen only in the case of Ekta Kapoor crap only. It could be possible that the same would be duplicated elsewhere as well but not that I have witnessed. I am talking about, of course, the Plastic surgery procedure. Again, they portray the plastic surgery to be such a simple procedure that the entire face of a person can be changed, without leaving a single mark of the body. But even more wonderful than that is the fact that a simple plastic surgery can also result in the height, weight, skin tone and even voice quality to be changed.

What a wonderful place to live, the Telly world be.

Images courtesy: themuslimwoman.org, connect.in.com

PS: Incidentally do though the following link http://www.themuslimwoman.org/entry/indian-saas-bahu-serials-depresses-pakistani-women/

Also look at the following Satiric video

Time Travel

Liked this one a lot. Original can be found here.

New games for CommonWealth Games

It is being widely publicized in the news how it is raining cats and dogs in Delhi, along with all the unfinished CWG work that has gone eons beyond its scheduled and revised and even re-revised deadlines, with no further hopes of getting completed in the near future. Add to it, more and more water is flowing into Delhi due to Haryana releasing water, creating a flood like situation in most of the venues, especially those concerned with the games. Due to heavy water logging in a lot of areas, a lot of crore rupee infrastructure developed just weeks back is falling apart like a pack of cards… quite literally so. CP is dug up so badly that no amount of fair and lovely cream or even ‘No-Marks’ can repair this damage.

So, as the government is now requesting general public to help make the CWG a success by cooperating with them. Now the fact that the Suresh Kalmadi did not ask for the help when it was time to earn a quick couple of crore is not to be discussed in this post as that merits an extensively dedicated thought of its own. So, coming back to the point… helping the CWG committee out.

I thought… a lot… about WHAT CAN I DO to help them out? I am not wealthy enough to help get some construction work done. I do not have enough political connections to get the public departments to get their work done instead of passing the buck, and on the way earn a quick dozen crore rupees. I am not the son of an influential politician that people would even listen to me. I am a simple engineer trying to be yem-bee-yey. I belong to knowledge economy and thinking is what I do best and damned I will be if I don’t try and think out a solution. And I did. At least I tried.

I thought why don’t we try and invent new sports for CWG 2010 seeing as most of the venues and connecting infrastructure is either incomplete or wrecked by the rains or lying in complete neglect. Hence, most of the games cannot take place in their conventional format. And like the typical Indian story, everything would have to be localized to Indian palate.

Now to the new game formats:

Kabaddi: This one is actually a no brainer. No infrastructure requirement for the game. Minimal requirement of training for the players. And best of all, it is one game where the Indians have a hell lot of more practice than the foreigners and thus more chance for them to win. Especially, looking at the cricket scenario, the Indian players seem unable to do a lot sorely on the basis of their talent.

Skip the pothole: Now that the rains are here and the top 2 mm layer of mortar has washed off the surface of roads, the underlying craters in the roads formed due to the underground water pipes giving way to behemoth craters which can swallow the entire eighteen tire trailers whole and not even belch. Even though I concede that of lately, it has been more of a swimming on the Delhi roads kind of scenario what with water logging and all, I am sure that most of the water will evaporate by the time games start. In these cases when there are more potholes on the road than the actual ‘road’, it is an art to walk or drive on these monstrosities without stepping in a puddle and/or getting drenched. With the entire CP dug, the cycle race seems to be going down the drain (forgive the pun), we need to have an alternate sport. What better option than to play a langadi (one legged) game of skipping the holes.

Pass the traffic jam: With heavy water logging on roads which were anyways dug to hell, traffic jams are one thing which has become a part of the daily life. Even faster than things such as packaged foods and cold drinks. Thousands of commuters face the jam every day. No time of day or night is without these jams. In fact, to some, it may seem that they are spending more time on the road than off it. Recent news is of a ten day long jam in china which has now crossed over 100 kms. People have not established their cars as a temporary home; how they conduct bodily functions is something that I do not even want to think about. But it is bloody China; they can do anything. But if China can do it, India too will. So we will institute this game wherein the players would have to pass through a jam in the peak office hour. The catch here would be that no honking or flashing-red lights or sirens will be allowed. Coming to think of it would not be a bad idea to include some politicians as well.

Beat the traffic jam: This one is more of a strategy oriented game than ‘Pass the traffic jam’ which was more oriented towards the brute force and maneuvering capabilities. In this game, player will be tested for their skills in planning the timing of departure, routes they chose, routes they avoid, where to avoid over speeding because the traffic cops are known to station around that area, etc etc. You get the idea.

Bribe the peon: With Delhi being the political capital of the country, there is obviously a lot of politics going on at any point of time. Everyone, except me sadly, has a political connection here. Even that peon you see watering the plants, is on that position because his uncle’s aunt’s nephew’s friend is peon to a minster. So he got the job though ‘approach’. Also, anyone who has had a file stuck into a government office knows this as well that even though it is the officers who are signing the files, the real deal maker or breaker are these peons who physically move these files from one desk to another. Infuriate them and a woman’s fury, let alone hell’s, would seem like a gentle warm breeze. Files have been known to simply disappear when these peons are not happy with a particular person. So, the challenge here would be to get the files moved in a government office, say MCD or DDA, without using any high level ‘approach’; sorely on the basis of bribing the peon. They will be judged on how much money they spent and how quickly they got their work done.

Hit the migrant laborer: This one is actually quite famous amongst the spawns of the rich. Seeing as government is not able to do anything to prevent it, we might as well institutionalize the bloody (literally) exercise and make some money out of it. This will help India in more than one ways: A) Some population will be reduced; B) Since some cars will be destroyed and the spawns hurt, there might be better driving experience for some time; C) With the cars destroyed, more cars will be imported into India which would benefit the auto manufacturers into setting up auto hubs in India; D) More money out of pocket of the riches and some will flow into the pockets of laborers etc. Coupled with the fact that games like shooting and archery seem impossible going by the condition of the stadiums, this game should be an instantaneous hit.

Garbage-in-bin: This could be the one sport where Indians might now be able to perform as well as their taller and fairer brethren. After all, having the treated the entire area outside of their home and vehicle as a litter bin; it might be a tad bit difficult to throw garbage in a small box at the corner of the road. On the plus side, since shooting and archery seem to be out of action, this game will provide an interesting alternative to the games and there is a slim chance that Indians might actually learn something from it.

Feel free to add on to the list.

PS: I Hope that Suresh Kalmadi is reading this one!

Image courtesy: thehindu.com, blogs.seattleweekly.com, samaylive.com, bharatchronicle.com, commonwealthgame2010.com, graphicreflections.org