April 26, 2008

Prime Minister Calls India's Universities 'Teaching Shops'

New Delhi — India’s prime minister, who last year described the country’s universities as dysfunctional, has again lashed out at them, calling them “teaching shops and degree-giving authorities” that have lost their tradition of research-oriented teaching.

“I say this as someone who has been a teacher,” Manmohan Singh said on Friday in a commencement address at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. “I have often said that I have strayed into politics by accident but my preferred career was teaching. I recall that in the days I used to be a student and a teacher, universities placed great emphasis on doing research along with teaching.”

Since taking office, in 2004, the prime minister has often criticized the state of India’s higher-education system. Last year he lambasted the governance of state universities and described them as below average. “A dysfunctional education system can only produce dysfunctional future citizens,” he said then.

On Friday Mr. Singh said his government had spent more money on public education than any other recent administration. But “it is not enough to spend it on buildings and salaries alone,” he said. “Some of it should be earmarked for research … and for providing scholarships to promising students.” —Shailaja Neelakantan

Comments

1. Even calling these places “teaching shops” is a hearty compliment. The number of public institutions of higher education in India that are even barely functional teaching shops (i.e. where classes, examinations and other pedagigical activities actually take place as scheduled) are a tiny, tiny handful (namely the IITs, IIMs, the IISc, a tiny group of medical schools, and a few of the more prestigious colleges within the University of Delhi system). The vast majority of public higher education institutions in India are dysfunctional cesspools of violent hooliganism on the part of students (and highly politicized student unions) , wanton negligence and corruption on the part of administrative staff, and complete apathy and sloth on the part of teachers. The degrees awarded by the bulk of these sorry institutions (when they finally do get awarded, given that classes and exams can get delayed for months and years by strikes, violence, and the like) are not even worth their weight in toilet paper. And as for research, that has not happened at any significant level at Indian public higher education institutions for decades now. Which is why pretty much every single Indian student who wants to pursue research-based graduate education has to flee the country to the US or Europe.

   — ABC    Apr 27, 12:37 AM    #

2. Indian Prime Minister is kind to call them as teaching Shops! They are just shops. If one observes the list of top 200 Universities, we just have IITs and IIms to boast of and nothing else. India has about 450-500 universities who waste public money, where Vice Chancellors are recruited on every other critera except his contribution to Education in his field! Indian Universities are manned by people who do not have much idea about what modern education is, though oflate, the situation is marginally changing. These guys have mentality and attitudes of British Raj and they want to perpetuate. Not many people know about modern teaching methods, examinations do not test outcomes, syllabus more often than not outdated. But then why Indians are flourishing in some of the Industries like IT, Software etc. We Have a Mathematical and Scientific traditions, our school science and mathematics education is reasonably good, stiff competition, large numbers. It is a chance of probability that given 500000 engineers, even if 10% are good because of their natural ability, we have 50000 quality enginners adding up to our strength. Most of these guys come to US and other countries.

   — Prof.Ravi Sankar Chandu    Apr 27, 05:02 AM    #

3. From the first comment, the author is trying to infer that IITs, IIMs, IISc, and University of Delhi are the only legitimate institutions. This is not true and there are lot of prestigious state-run institutions that have produced excellent students who have achieved great things in life. To name a few, Mr. Narayan Murthy, CEO of Infosys, obtained his undergraduate degree from National Institute of Engineering of Mysore (Karnataka State in South).

   Having said that, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a PhD economist and is greatly influenced by elite schools in the west. He is only copying the western Research one university style of emphasizing research at the expense of undergraduate teaching. He is not in touch with the day-to-day functioning of classroom teaching in the west. In lot of so-called research one universities, the undergraduate teaching quality is dismal and most of the foundation courses are taught by inadequately prepared TAs, most of whom are not qualified to teach. This is no wonder that so many of the US students do not have adequate problem-solving skills. Before Indian elites try to copy the western style blindly – they need to come and spend one year working in the US universities. In particular, they need to sit in the undergraduate classrooms to observe the impact of research emphasis in US universities on the diminishing quality fo teaching.

   I think the elitism in education should be tempered by the reality of educating masses in India who need skills to compete in the global world. The Industrial consulting should be encouraged at the undergraduate level while research can be stressed at the PG levels. I don’t think it is a good idea to impose research on undergraduate faculty. You can see the consequences of these actions in the US universities.

   — Sam Engineer    Apr 27, 08:52 AM    #

4. Comment #1 above is right on the money and comment #3 is way off base. It is true that in a small number of introductory classes in research universities in the US, the sections and not the classes themselves are led by graduate TAs, somtimes with minimal teaching skills. However, to generalize from here and to state that teaching is of sub-standard quality and that US students lack problem solving skills is to display an apalling level of ignorance. In general, US students think far more creatively and “outside the box” than do many Indian graduate students who tend to be experts at rote learning. It is only after some exposure to the US system that Indian students—-never lacking in brainpower—-realize that there are alternate ways of doing things, that these alternate ways often produce more meaningful results, and they hence learn to adapt quickly.

   I have frequently gone back to India to give seminars and lectures at the IITs and in other institutions in India of similar stature (the ISIs) and I am dismayed by the abysmal lack of infrastructure. In addition, salaries are very low, working papers are largely absent, journals get to the libraries, that is when they get there at all, several months late, and morale is low.

   Rather than being an apologist for the largely dysfunctional public Indian educational system, it is high time we recognize its ills and do something drastic about it.

   — AAB    Apr 28, 12:08 PM    #

5. Most of the Indian Universities and colleges are in a bad shape due to corruption, selling degrees and diplomas and hooligalism by students. I had the opportunity to talk with many administrators in India. They told me that degrees are bought and sold. Only a few good students study and earn their degrees. By being rich helps mediocre students to get their degrees.

   — kvc    Apr 28, 11:45 PM    #

6. Education is a money making industry in India. The government has abandoned its role in education.In most state run universities teacher vacancies have not been filled up for several years.The less said about the private colleges and universities the better. Research can follow later. Let us educate our students properly first in basics.

   — romney    Apr 29, 12:48 PM    #

7. i want to take training in postgraduat neurosurgery for spinal fusion and fixation

   — yildrim a jaafer    May 6, 09:57 AM    #

8. i feel the educational system is filled with quotas.everytime we come to hear about is just about the increment in the quotas.for example mr b.r.ambedkar had said that the quotas shall be applied only for 10 years .after 61 years they still exist.in a country like india meritocracy has been questioned on the lines of babudhom just for the sake of votebank politics.the results in the near future can be disastorous.

   — sunil kumar    May 10, 01:32 AM    #

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