The other day I was reading somewhere that India's literacy rates has gone up a couple of notches in the last few years. But then is it really so? Is just being able to read and write alphabets and a few sentences makes you literate? Recently i came across a guy from Darbhanga, Bihar who has done his graduation and was pursuing his BEd. This guy has never ever seen a computer let alone use it. He was totally baffled as he was supposed to make a project on Information and Communication Technology.
I was flabbergasted. How is it possible that a guy in this era who has completed his graduation has never really touched a computer let alone use it?
But I believe this is the situation in our country. And somehow for obvious reasons our rotting education system has got stuck or rather become regressive.
CBSE is the best example of this situation. In order to pass every tom dick and harry we are creating an entire generation of degree holders who know nothing and will eventually become useless when it comes to job market.
This years CBSE results have shown that class 10 students are scoring perfect 10s in huge numbers. Have these students suddenly become intelligent or are we faking it all? It is anybody's guess.
And then we have our professional colleges which are production houses of engineers and MBAs. Again let me emphasize that our country's vast population actually needs more professional colleges but the problem is not the number but the quality.
A BTech passout gets a job of teaching in the same college immediately after his course. Now how much does a BTech passout would know to teach the students? Anybody's guess. And then when he teaches and creates other engineers they are bound to be substandard. So it creates a viscious cycle.
In one of the colleges where I have taught, the college didnot have an Electrical Engineering Lab and another one didnot have a Workshop fo First year students. Now engineering is supposed to be a Practical field where Labs and Workshops are very important and when students don't know anything about workshops and machines what type of engineers will they be.
I happened to be an "external" examiner for the students of my college's third year students and I went to take their electrical engineering lab viva. I was appalled to see that our future engineers could not differentiate between a resistor, diode and pico-farad capacitor.
Now that is engineering for us.
I was flabbergasted. How is it possible that a guy in this era who has completed his graduation has never really touched a computer let alone use it?
But I believe this is the situation in our country. And somehow for obvious reasons our rotting education system has got stuck or rather become regressive.
CBSE is the best example of this situation. In order to pass every tom dick and harry we are creating an entire generation of degree holders who know nothing and will eventually become useless when it comes to job market.
This years CBSE results have shown that class 10 students are scoring perfect 10s in huge numbers. Have these students suddenly become intelligent or are we faking it all? It is anybody's guess.
And then we have our professional colleges which are production houses of engineers and MBAs. Again let me emphasize that our country's vast population actually needs more professional colleges but the problem is not the number but the quality.
A BTech passout gets a job of teaching in the same college immediately after his course. Now how much does a BTech passout would know to teach the students? Anybody's guess. And then when he teaches and creates other engineers they are bound to be substandard. So it creates a viscious cycle.
In one of the colleges where I have taught, the college didnot have an Electrical Engineering Lab and another one didnot have a Workshop fo First year students. Now engineering is supposed to be a Practical field where Labs and Workshops are very important and when students don't know anything about workshops and machines what type of engineers will they be.
I happened to be an "external" examiner for the students of my college's third year students and I went to take their electrical engineering lab viva. I was appalled to see that our future engineers could not differentiate between a resistor, diode and pico-farad capacitor.
Now that is engineering for us.
