Looking back

This is a post I've been wanting to put up for some time now. After my last post much has happened in life, among which is completing college. So I wanted to, in hindsight, see how I fared the past four years, objectively; to look the system in its face after being a part of it and to sum up my experiences, opinions and suggestions for improving it. My intention is not to trash/pan the setup. I merely seek, for my own satisfaction, to offer a thorough evaluation. 

In India, my generation is the bearers of the first harvest of technology revolution. I am a child of the 90s. And as many would say, 90s was when the floodgates of India were opened to the world, by a wise PM- Narasimha Rao, who for obvious reason of not having  "Gandhi" for a surname is today ignored by his partymen. It is not as if, Rao brought in reforms suo-moto , but it was the compulsion of an impending economic crunch. But credit goes to him for bearing the political burden of ushering it in. Not to diverge, this growing-up-with-technology made me choose a course in Engineering, at a well-respected private University, down South. 

I have had this experience even in schools- the system is always result-driven as far as my State- Tamil Nadu- is concerned. Quality of an educational institution is weighed in terms of its success rate- quantity- in a exam (10th, +2). Imparting education is seen as reproducing, blindly or otherwise, textual information. This is to be expected since the need to educate a large number of students ( caused by large population), results in a highly skewed teacher-student ratio. Add it to the fact that, no effort has been made to make the teaching profession attractive, monetarily, resulting in a acute dearth of well-qualified persons as teachers. It was not like this always- I have heard/read about times when the teacher's profession was revered. The social prestige it had was high. Not so now. Today, it is seen as just another profession- a source of job security and income. I don't mean to generalise this as the mentality of all teachers, but in my knowledge it is largely the case. Academic rigour is lacking among teachers, from my personal experience of schooling. Mastery of the text is equated to scholarship of the subject. I've been in schools in places as varied as- The Nilgiris, Tirunelveli, Delhi, Trichy. S.L.Bhyrappa opines, in his brilliantly written autobiography Bhitti, that the decline in quality is due to the doing away of merit as a criterion for selecting teachers because of implementation of reservation policy. This has led to a dilution in quality. It is counter-logical that in a profession such as teaching, which has the capability to shape a million minds, merit should be done away with. Instead, the thrust must have been on institutional mechanisms like scholarship, financial incentives, mass awareness, etc. to help people from marginalised sections to come up. A typical class was never witness to a probing, intellectually stimulating discussion on the subject at hand. It is a largely one-way street of information flow- teacher to student. Concepts were never laid threadbare and reassembled to reveal the larger picture. Mathematics might as well be renamed as "Some text problems and their Standard solutions". Even if there was a great teacher, the system allowed her/him no room to try something different. Conforming to the system was imperative for survival. Inquisitive questions were shot down as arrogance or merely brushed aside. Laws of demand and supply ensure that as long as a school showed 100% results, people flocked for admission. There is no incentive to improve the state of affairs. Personal experience- participation in extra-curricular activities depended on academic excellence (read as high marks). My friend and myself wanted to participate in a quiz competition (both of us were good). While I was allowed, my friend was denied citing is less than desirable marks. This could have happened in any school. There are other institutions (boarding schools), I learnt from my friends, which are no different from the description of concentration camps, where one in made to study close to 18 hours. This crazy demand for marks, has resulted in a phenomenon called "Mark/Grade inflation" is public exams. Each passing year, the number of centums in subjects is increasing exponentially, so that the system's demand for astronomical marks is satisfied.

To come back to the plot, my college experience was not a big difference from this. In my first year, I had a vast array of subjects. The day was crammed to the fullest. Curricular compulsions forced this state of affairs. I'll list out the subjects I had:

1. Engineering drawing                                        

2. Basic Civil engineering

3. Communication strategies

4. Basic Mechanical engineering

5.Personality development (!)

6. Chemistry

7. Mathematics-I

8. Programming in C

9. Chemistry lab

10. Computer lab

11. CAD lab.

Of all these, even after four years, I still don't understand why (2), (4), (6), (9) were there. Let me tell you this, I am a student of Electrical and electronics engineering. I had a rude shock when I saw the timetable- Have I come to the right class? Where's anything related to Electrical? The teachers's only mandate is to cover the syllabus. Once, in  a lecture in IIT-Delhi, the professor said, "In this institution we never focus on covering the syllabus, we focus on uncovering it".  What a far-cry from my college. In my first year, because of this vast galaxy of subjects I never had time for anything else. The teacher also never inspired any measure of confidence. In his/her defence, there was no incentive to try something different. You just covered the syllabus, who cares if everyone understood or not. Also I have seen, some of the teachers themself  have a remarkably poor grasp of the subject matter. What can you say, when they themselves are products of the same system. This is a vicious circle. But some teachers were indeed gems. They gave their best to elucidate concepts to the fullest, cleared doubts; were honest enough to say they did not know it now, but promised to refer and explain further. And they kept that promise. 

There was this ugly phenomenon of students going to the teachers and begging for marks- asking for 1 mark, 2 mark, etc. Disgusting. The system forced them to do that. Some even had the temerity to tamper with the teacher's register,manipulating figures there. It was an eye-opener, on the kind of culture the education system encouraged. Well, to be honest, my college is what people would call as - " good place". It is true. Infrastructure is present, there is no teacher shortage. I've seen some colleges that are really pathetic- buildings half-constructed, hostels that are hell holes, no good teachers, no proper labs, etc. Compared to them, my college is top class. It is a Tier-2 college. But yet, the quality of education offered, is ordinary or average. As a student, I never felt really inspired, confident that I am learning something great.

But, my college does not lack in initiatives. They are doing their best within the narrow confines of the system. Seminars are organised, people from the industry are brought in, etc. But even these positive initiatives have a seemingly monotonous/moribund feel to it. It is all so mechanical. How to change this state of affairs? What is lacking? What needs to be done? These questions have bothered me. For long, I used to think that something is wrong with me. If I'm not doing good, then I'm not working hard enough or I'm not good enough. These are dangerous thoughts. They can drive a person crazy. It is only later I realised that it was the same with all. The trick is to know how to milk the system to your advantage. There were people I know who did just that. One kind of people were there, they hardly attend classes, cared two hoots for what the teacher had to say and wrote what they knew in the exam. The other extreme was the ever-concerned, ever-anxious group that hung on every word of the teacher. They did not care if the teacher merely repeated what was in the book- teaching by converting active voice to passive voice- they wrote down that also. For them going to each and every teacher and collecting notes was the principal job. They crammed everything in it. There is another kind of people- normally they are like the first category of people, caring nothing. But from a week before the exam they morph into the second category. They study just for exams. Then over, back to square one. I don't stand in judgement of any group merely recording what I've seen. And, I also have to admit this- there are some genuinely talented people in the student pool. They are regular, they know what they are doing. Even if the teacher is lacking, they compensate by thorough self-study. I know such people. 

After four years, I have the following suggestions to offer the management:

* Abandon all unrelated stuff, this is not school. We've come to college to specialise. 

* Lead away from the exam/placements focused approach to education. Results are important, but they are not the only thing. The syllabus must be tailored to suit the student's need and not the other way around. 

* Only teachers who are domain specialists in a particular subject must handle classes on that. Not any teacher. I've seen teachers handle subjects that they did not specialise in. It is extremely difficult for them to impart the concepts fully. The whole purpose is lost since the teacher just looks to go by the prescribed text. 

* Comprehensive and critical evaluation of a teacher's performance by means of a feedback system. Although it exists, its implementation leaves much to be desired. Lets face it, gone are the days when students were mere passive recipients. Constructive criticism and feedback from the student community is to be encouraged. And a suitable atmosphere must exist for it to happen. 

* Considering my college has a thriving Law department, I would like to request them to offer Basic India    Law, as a course for first year students. In today's world, this will be infinitely helpful when we are forced to fight injustices in the system. Laws like the IPC, Motor Vehicles Act, RTI, CrPC, should be introduced. Practical instances should be taken and the role played by the law illustrated. People interested in it can take such electives at a later stage also. This is a sure step towards citizen-empowerment, in my view. The University's role is not limited to just getting students placed, but to send out responsible citizens. 

* Collaboration with local govt. administration to sensitise the role played by their subjects in solving problems. For instance, when the Corporation is planning to build a bridge/ a new bus-shelter or maintenance work on a sub-station is being done, etc. students should be allowed to visit/participate in such activities. Civil engineering students can be taken in as apprentices when a construction work goes on (like roads, etc.) so that they have a real-time learning experiences. 

* Any engineering work, even as small as wiring, repairing a fan, etc. should involve student participation. They can learn valuable hands-on, practical knowledge from it.

* In hindsight, I realise now the role of software tools like MATLAB, PSPICE, etc. for me as an electrical person. College should offer labs for such software in first year. Having chemistry lab is completely useless- we did stupid experiments like titration of this salt, that salt- which after 4 years I see would not serve me as an engineer at all. Most companies have dedicated Chemists to do such things. Instead, offer subject-relevant lab courses. 

* Incentivise library usage. the present system of just 2 books a person is not good. A person should be allowed to take 4-5 books equal to the number of subjects he/she has. 

* Teacher workshops for counselling teachers to shift towards a new method of teaching, where the class is not a one-way street. There is big time bias for some teachers to judge students as good/bad based on exam marks. 

* To reduce the number of teaching hours in a day. To sit for 9 AM -5 PM,for 8 classes,  in a hot country like ours, and to listen to class is mentally straining. At the end of the day, no energy is left to study. Teaching hours to be reduced to 6. Two sessions with a break in between. 9-12 noon; break till 2PM; 2-5PM. Each class can be for 1 hour. This gives enough time to elucidate concepts; having practical demonstrations in class to be encouraged by the management. 

* Do away with writing Record for the lab. The most time-consuming and unproductive of activities is this writing of Record. It serves no purpose. Instead, the thrust must be to clearly explain, to each student, the purport and procedure of the experiment; the contextual relevance. Mindlessly writing steps from "last-year record" etc. will dull the mind.

*Last, but most importantly, the student community should also have a deep introspection. Yes, it is true the system is not very friendly. But one should try to maximise the resources available.

My college has all the right things, it only needs well-directed action and a will on the management and the teachers' part to offer a paradigm shift in terms of education at the University level, with the co-operation of the students.