With over 350 participants, more than 60 speakers, including three heads of state and four Union ministers, the ThinkEdu Conclave came to an end on February 8 in Chennai. Organised by The New Indian Express group, the central theme of the conclave was ‘Schooling for tomorrow’. The two-day conclave that was held at ITC Grand Chola witnessed heated debates across 12 panel discussions on various edu issues.
The banquet hall was packed with students and educators, who stayed throughout the long-winding sessions. Delays and shortened breaks notwithstanding, the well-informed audience remained focused and drilled the speakers on and off stage. Though it was an education conclave, Chennai surprised us as non-academicians also participated in it.
Some of the topics covered were Right to Education Act, an ideal school syllabus, deregulation of education, dearth of good teachers, the importance of vocational degrees, politicisation of education, a secular edu, gender and class bias in the classroom, how to build world-class colleges, employability of our grads and whether a foreign education is a bane or boon for India.
Our distinguished speakers came up with many solutions to the ills plaguing our education sector. Former president APJ Abdul Kalam suggested we create a world-class human resource cadre to improve the education system in India. The plight of teachers was well described by Maya Menon, founder, Teacher Foundation, when she said, “The systemic disempowerment of teachers in schools has created havoc. In private schools, they (teachers) follow management orders while in public schools they follow government orders. They are not allowed to think.”
Everyone, including Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for HRD, agreed that while the Sixth Pay Commission has upped the economic status of teachers, more needs to be done, if India has to retain talented academicians. A lot of stress was laid on research. Only two per cent of India’s GDP is spent on research, woefully low. Many panelists urged for more ‘edu-philanthropists’. References were made to the US edu system, which has an abundant corpus, thanks to donations and aid by private players.
Mallika Srinivasan, MD of TAFE, urged the government to create a transparent system wherein private players are encouraged. Bala V Balachandran, founder of Great Lakes Institute of Management, also suggested that private players could “take charge to create pockets of excellence.” Jitin Prasada, Union HRD minister said private investment can be encouraged as long as they address the concerns of the government with regards to weaker sections of the society and the minority community.
The stark reality is that our graduates do not have the right set of skills. K Lakshmi Narayanan, vice-chairman, Cognizant Technology Solutions, voiced his concerns about the employability of our students, an opinion that was shared by many of our panelists from the industry. This is a serious issue as more than 500 million Indians are under 25 years and would soon enter the workforce. Anupam Pahuja, head-development centre, PayPal suggested that the way out would be to say “no to a silo-based education system.”
Holistic education of youngsters was propounded as a solution. Jayanti Ravi, commissioner of higher education, Gujarat, recounted her experiments with education in Gujarat. One of them was a choice-based credit system, wherein students have the freedom to mix and match courses. Rajendra Dixit, former dean-faculty, education and social sciences in NCERT, stressed on the fact that knowledge should direct towards passion and compassion.
Madhava Menon, founder of NLSIU, recounted how he was able to build a world-class law institute in the country as he was given the freedom to do. Rajan Saxena, vice-chancellor, Narsee Monjee Institute, said that freedom of thought and expression and flexibility must be the characteristics of our institutions.
The difficulties a female student faces was also widely discussed. Lata Vaidyanathan, principal, Modern School, said that we need to change the perception that jobs are gender-specific. Tharoor acknowledged that many government schools lack basic facilities like toilets, which is preventing girls from continuing their edu.
While the call for private participation was explicit, the audience and panelists were highly critical of the amount of money that the government is pumping into the sector — 4.8 per cent of the GDP. Since independence, India focused on universalisation of education. The challenge before us is to increase the gross enrollment ratio of students in college, which now stands at 18 per cent, and also to create an excellent education system, which would produce graduates who are not only competent technically but also are good human beings with moral values.
— nithya@newindianexpress.com