Sign In / Register
Make This My Home Page | Feedback |RSS
Channels Astrology | Cricket | Tenders | Classified | Blogs | Shopping | Opinions | Hotel| Travel
You are here: IE »   Story » Comment »

Set the campus free

Kapil Sibal, the new minister for human resource development, has his first task cut out for him. He acquires a portfolio so ill-served by his predecessors and one that has such a critical bearing on India realising its social and political aspirations that he must hit the ground running. The   ....Read more

Comments
Post comment
12 Comments |
The answer to the problem is not difficultBy: Kumar Varoon | Friday , 17 Jul '09 2:22:15 AM Reply | Forward The author missed the key point here. University is ranked on the basis of their success. For example, technical universitis (like IIT) are ranked on the basis of the research quality
Impossible to implement under present circumstancesBy: Avinash Upadhyay | Thursday , 18 Jun '09 22:11:37 PM Reply | Forward The article is very good. But points 3, 4, and 5 cannot be tackled at all. Flexible wages. student recruitment as the university wants (no reservations?) etc. cannot be tackled by governments which make criteria other than merit their main vote-catching gimmick.
Some thoughts to considerBy: Salil | Thursday , 11 Jun '09 15:43:38 PM Reply | Forward Very good article and hits the nail on the head. But I putting down my thoughts to add to this discussion. I feel education is also a means of ensuring social justice, which is distribution of the advantages and disadvantages of society to all alike. Social justice warrants that, all classes of society have "equal access" to education and we all must welcome this measure to create a level playing field. Public universities, reservations and government grants, used properly, serve this purpose. However, this model fails to recognise merit. Merit, like private enterprise, does not need government's support but its encourgement and facilitation. Meritocractic students deserve low-interest loans to fund themselves at private institutions that enjoy government incentives. Agree that private education comes with high costs, but it comes the with the reward of access to the finest professors, reseach and development, facilities and career prospects to both students and professors.
Ground realities to be facedBy: R.S.shrivastava | Wednesday , 3 Jun '09 8:08:12 AM Reply | Forward Removing state control is a laudatory idea, but who will finance the general run of universities who cater mainly to "slumdog population", not the elitist ones.Besides, the private sector in education would be interested only in lucrative courses like engineering,medical,MBA etc. What about Arts and humanities?Look at the manner and haste of appointing the vice-chancellors of 15 central universities recently, and one can see the impending rot in the so-called central and "international " universities.The new HRD minister needs to look in to these and other ground realities.
Towering above the RestBy: Partha Sarathy | Tuesday , 2 Jun '09 18:08:33 PM Reply | Forward Tagore's Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high applies to BITS Pilani which is undoubtedly one among the top ranking universities in india today.
mr.By: hitesh brahmbhatt | Tuesday , 2 Jun '09 16:06:26 PM Reply | Forward So, I presume you oppose the reservation in educational institutions. But, as far as I know Harvard, MIT and other premier schools in US do implement Affirmative Action and still maintain pretty good reputation.Also, as a side note, more often than not; IIT grads pursue non-technical careers in US.hitesh
Research and ReservationBy: Harshad | Tuesday , 2 Jun '09 12:28:04 PM Reply | Forward A very good article indeed. Two R's which are hurdles in the path of progress are not discussed in the article viz Reservation and lack of Research. BITS Pilani serves as a prime example, where no bounds of reservations are present and the institute's progress is quite well known. The progress of Pune university is a healthy sign
Tread judiciouslyBy: Commoner | Tuesday , 2 Jun '09 12:18:47 PM Reply | Forward In the excitement of having a new HRD minister, we should not forget the significance of quality control in the field of education. We all are aware of the stark disparity in the standards of education imparted by the computer training institutes. Except for NIIT, none of them have managed a decent track record and reputation. Education, like medical facilities, cannot be fully 'free' - autonomy to design and run courses, to reward staff, to select students, etc. is relevant and necessary. As we have seen in recently liberalised industries, the players tend to compete excessively (e.g aviation) unless we have effective regulation (e.g. insurance). Hence, let us tread carefully by first revamping and empowering bodies for standards (for e.g. AICTE) and regulating day-to-day operations (for e.g. UGC).
The main problem is profsBy: Aadit Kapadia | Tuesday , 2 Jun '09 8:48:17 AM Reply | Forward everywhere in the unis of us you see that the min requirement to be a prof is to be a phd whereas in india any m tech student is a prof another thing is that profs over 62 cant teach so that is a problem. i'll give an example my grandfather had a very successful job with an MNC.. but just for educating people he used to go at the L.D engineering, a'bad and M.S.U , vadodra.. and in spite the dean and students wanting to learn from him they couldn't as after 62 he couldnt teach same is true for a lot of unis.. if profs are encouraged to teach after 60's.. their experience and patience adds a new dimension to universities.
Quality Research is not done in India at all By: Dr.G.Srinivasan | Tuesday , 2 Jun '09 7:57:20 AM Reply | Forward The quoted paper by Philip Aghion et.al refers to how governance affects the performance of the universities. I think it may not have much relevance because Indian university research base and quality of research itself is poor . Many universities do not do any kind of class research at all. Somewhere the author confuses and takes for granted that the research is being done at all -- in many universities this is not the case. The fact is we do not have a solid research base in institutions. Excepting the major institutions research does not exist.They believe that education is enough. As one principal of Kasturba Medical college , Manipal (Somebody rated it among the top ten medical colleges) put it to me service , teaching are more important and research is not!!!! I had gone to him with the request to start a Neurochemistry department with special reference to neuropeptides. I was the only one who did any research in this field in 1990s. I got the same rebuff from IISc,ICMR,
Next12
Post a Comment
Name:
Email:
Title:
Maximum characters allowed     
Comment:
TERMS OF USE:
The views, opinions and comments posted are your, and are not endorsed by this website. You shall be solely responsible for the comment posted here. The website reserves the right to delete, reject, or otherwise remove any views, opinions and comments posted or part thereof. You shall ensure that the comment is not inflammatory, abusive, derogatory, defamatory &/or obscene, or contain pornographic matter and/or does not constitute hate mail, or violate privacy of any person (s) or breach confidentiality or otherwise is illegal, immoral or contrary to public policy. Nor should it contain anything infringing copyright &/or intellectual property rights of any person(s).
I agree to the terms of use.