1/1/2021 Part 2.1
Philosophy
We have been looking at various aspects of education with focus on engineering education. Let us look at learning. I want to use philosophical angle to deal with learning. We will see some aspects of learning from common person’s perspective and not from specialists’ views.
Your support and views and comments are important for us to forward.
Disclaimer
Some, a very felt, that this discussion is not taking us anywhere. They became frustrated. They wanted to do something but not able to do it. So, I want to clarify in the beginning itself that it is a tough job to reform education. If we create awareness amongst many known to us about the broader aspects of learning, it will be a service. In addition, some of my academic friends may initiate some actions in autonomous institutions. Then we are happy. We do not have the bandwidth or influence or executive power to make changes. Remember education is highly regulated, rigid and not subject to change. We need to break this attitude. Sure enough, government of India has come up with a new education policy. So I hope that learning will improve.
There was another question why I chose WhatsApp and not blogs. The answer is evident to you. Blogs do not reach many, there are millions of blogs. Secondly these daily feeds improve assimilation. I read some are writing interactive fiction using this route. So, I experimented. You will agree we succeeded. I did not create a group. Because all my friends do not know others in the group and sometimes, we get flooded with good morning messages. So, I chose this route. My broadcast group is a mixed one. It has many academics, youngsters, bankers and industrialists. Most have a passion about education and look at it from different angles and views. So, it is an advantage.
Hope it is clear.
Let us new year with a good slate not a clean slate.
1/2/2021 Part 2.2
Received many comments. Some discussions are presented for your information and comments if needed.
Mr Bala Ajjampur says
“I am glad that I am part of the group who are invested in education. No matter what their background is, I am invested in hearing their views. I want them to say whatever they feel like saying, right or wrong, trifle or monumental. I have no shame in blowing my horn regarding QTiME learning whenever I hear something that is or close to what QTiME learning advocates. Learning does not differentiate, but learners may. Hope your insights in teaching, coupled with all the feedback will help us to gain new understanding of learning required for the 21st century.”
Prof Rangaraj ,Professor at SSIT Tumkur and editor of a research journal, says,
“Stranglehold of Tax Eaters on education should be loosened to make it conform to demand and supply and not be led by any “visions”.
NEP should have object of complete deregulation from Government, with respect to syllabus, evaluation, salaries, admission and certification.”
My response:
“Fully agree with you on deregulation. Multiple education units and departments with millions of obstructors should be abolished. Why do we need commissioner of public instruction, technical education and collegiate education and a department of education at state and central government level – enormous duplication? Their work is transfer of teachers. Teachers don’t have freedom. They use political influence for transfers. Close them and spend the money on teachers. These are destroyers of education, not builders. It is a tragedy they have a stranglehold on education and kept it backward. We need a group of thinkers for futuristic policies and corrective measures to be adopted. mistrust need to go.
Unfortunately, NEP and educationists are not looking at deregulation by multiple agencies. They should have created a task force with good thinkers and educationists to revitalize universities to become universities and not exam centers and spur education as a movement. More comments tomorrow.
1/3/2021 Part 2.3
Mr Jayashankar has some detailed comments on education.
Education is a complex area where in we have to address many aspects.
From my experience, there is course modifications required. Present system of education is common even in graduate level and then people chose their line of interest like working in industries, research, teaching and what not.
My suggestion is,
upto 12 the standard it is OK to have a common platform. But afterwards the real liking of a student should be assessed – whether for practical working or teaching or research.
For research, the coaching in graduate level should be in such a way that induces their passion for research. Perhaps after a period of time, some may find it difficult to continue in the research orientation. If they are in initial stage, they can be allowed to change over. In this method those people who are having an aptitude for research, will continue and the research-oriented course will help them to think differently, compared to those who are in employment orientation.
There is also another field of specialization. Entrepreneurship.
That is also a special field and people has to be trained to handle that. If you take Gujaratis, almost all families are in business giving employment to number of persons. Today even while studying, they got exposure to business cleverness because of their family background. There could be number common people with business mind who are deprived of this opportunity. Now a days people even after studying MBA, majority of people opt only for employment and they dare not to start of their own.
This s my humble view
My opinion
I feel educationists should consider this. Class room teaching cannot address these and many other important aspects.
Raju Goleti, vice president, COIN networks, TCS has the following comment.
“I agree with you that education is a tough place to do reform. There is a lot of rigidity in its structure.
Now is the time for its full disruption. The fault line was always there! Taking an example of MIT, from the same rigid structure, edX platform came as a spin=off, 9 years back. Now this new structure allows masters programs even without a bachelors!
As a researcher in ‘education’, I look forward to understanding more in this subject and will be happy to share my views.”
My response
I think we should seriously consider a new model like online schools and non-formal institutions giving quality, flexible, relevant education. The institutions can even affiliate with edX for a degree. We can take EdX model further. Many ambitious private universities and institutions are there in the country. There are also many autonomous institutions which can take this approach. We need to go through a non-degree mode initially and create success. Then one can hope for a degree program. Hope some will come forward.
1/4/2021 Part 2.4
Comments by Mr Indrajit Arora, GM, PNB retired:
“Very interesting.
I think, for today’s and coming generations, by class 12, thinking process of a child becomes less adaptable.
The reform should focus on ways to discover a child’s potential and passion, in its formative years, itself”
“I agree, but can we change some aspects in higher education level or give up?”
Very detailed critique on our education is given by Raju Goleti , Vice President, COIN, TCS. It deserves our attention.
“Thanks for sharing. I have some supportive points for your argument on ‘de-regulation’ as below. Also refer to the last point (Jayadeva) about widening socio-economic status due to de-regulation. This is certainly a complex subject and, in my opinion, policy interventions will need to be carefully managed through distributed governance without the political interference.
To start with, implementation of India’s education policy failed. This is well explained by Ben Ansell.
(Ben W. Ansell FBA is Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
His book From the Ballot to the Blackboard: The Redistributive Politics of Education won the William H. Riker prize for best book in political economy)
I share below a brief summary of my learning from reading his paper, ‘the re-distributive political economy of education’.
I refer to his two puzzles in the article (1) why post-independence, India failed to provide education for its masses? (2) reversal of typical government spending patterns and two insights
And two insights: (1) how education is re-distributive and a great tool for political manipulation (2) education policy being connected to the trends in the labor market of the nation as well as its integration with the global economy.
History:
India’s first 5-year plan had 6% spending of national income on public education spending. Good funding was re-iterated in Kothari commission (1966) and National Education Policy (1986). By 1990s India was in depression and unable to provide for human development!
Around the same time (1969) Malaysia spent 8% of GDP on education, at par with Denmark, Sweden and Norway. India: even though education was recognized as a catalyst of economic growth, yet 50%+ of the population is not educated!
From the unified theory of education policy: Education is re-distributive + a powerful tool for political manipulation
Universal education= undermines the position of the rich, weakens the ‘returns on education’ for the skilled elite, therefore it is in their interests to ‘block’ it
Progressivity of education = depends on who actually receive it! This can flip when it is limited to a sub-group of population. (Wealthy are dis-proportionately represented in higher education). Public spending on higher education is fiscally regressive.
India’ failure to educate its citizens = because it was sheltered from global economy and not the result of caste system (Rudra 2003, Wibbels, 2006).
Both Nation’s and global economy are important and Hanushek’s economic value of education illustrates this well.
Also, Chmielewski’s research (2019) on socio-economic-status (SES) achievement gap.
Key take-away: public education policy is heavily affected by the nature of the global market for educated labor.”
This is a complex area and I think that de-regulation is a great idea yet it has its own risks. Also referring to Jayadeva’s paper on how low-cost English-medium schools has created social mobility in Bangalore during a period of rapid IT industrialization. Yet, the SES gap has only widened!
1/5/2021 Part 2.5
Comments from Mr Jitendar, a good innovator who built small affordable tablets in 1990 s which were used in engineering colleges for content sharing:
“Morning Sir. during the last one month you have shared about many things and one of the concerning issues you brought was the CLASS/CASTE/RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS. in my opinion the root cause for all this is the process of delivering our education and not the EDUCATION SYLLABUS/SYSTEM. We have municipal schools, corporation schools and private schools of a wide range. this plants the class/caste/religion/communal thought in child’s mind at age 3 of all classes of society.”
This needs a detailed response from me.
Let me explain my involvement in school education.
I was involved in school learning for four decades and visited and talked to students in several taluks of Karnataka. We also had a teacher improvement program for thirty years at IISc and I participated in it. I initiated a student’s scientists interaction program through KSCST when I was the secretary. The next secretary promptly closed it. But the enthusiasm of students needs to be seen. It is phenomenal. Students are from rural schools, very curious and eager. I coordinated the Mahithisindu program of computer-based education in 1000 high schools in early nineties. The attendance in schools was 100 % and enrollments went up. We at FAER are running a technology barrier reduction program for the past seven years where rural government school students are taken to an engineering college for 21 days and they learnt several things including communications and collaboration, no subject studies, but read books and discuss. Twelve engineering colleges participated in this. Students learnt very fast; they were shy in the beginning but started interacting. Went to library, labs, read books and wrote abstracts. They learnt to speak English fast and they conducted the programs. Their involvement is great. The effects should be seen to be believed. We interacted with them through skype. Volunteers visited and interacted with them. The students who went to PESCE, Mandya spoke very well in the valedictory session. They are from government schools. So, what is needed is good confidence levels and “I can do “attitude. We should be able to nurture students. They don’t have opportunities.
So my observation is a lot of students are motivated, curious and interested but lack the know-how.
Can we do an experiment?
I have a request. We have many principals, faculty from several colleges. Is it possible to get five students who can join us in WhatsApp, pose questions and we try to answer? Let us do this in a small way and move forward. FAER can support this.
My request is please talk to students. We can get interested students into our discussions and answer their questions.
Later we will go to high school students with more support from teachers and involvement of DSERT.
For more details on our high school students’ program, please visit our website
www. FAER.ac.in
1/6/2021 Part 2.6
Padmapriya, a student,has the following question.
“Grateful to be a beneficiary of these insights you send. You mention entrepreneurship in part 2.3. Since engineers are fundamentally problem solvers, it would be beneficial if they could simultaneously be good entrepreneurs. What practical steps can be taken for this? Is it a good idea for students to take up a project every year of their 4-year degree instead of just towards the end?”
My response
You gave answers in your comment. We need to encourage students to think and also do something useful. So more projects is a must. The first-year project may focus on social engineering. Second year to focus on design. If possible, an internship at an industry or Rand D labs in second year end; it will be good to do a large problem-solving project like building a robot or writing a major program for a non-trivial application or designing a smart water or power grid or a transportation network, etc. in the third year. The main dissemination project be done in final year.
If college does not permit, a group of students can do it.
Get some motivated students. Start a discussion forum, online as a Google group. Discuss about startups, why they succeeded and why some failed; use crowd sourcing amongst students for ideas. Get some entrepreneurs to talk to you online. Take initiative for this.
Today plenty of reading materials and resources are available with us. We can benefit intensely from them. Google regularly to find answers to questions.
More importantly, we need to develop concentration. This can be done first through yoga and meditation regularly daily. Then a few more habits are needed.
Spend minimum one hour of reading a good book general technical, philosophy or biography ones. Spend 10 minutes to write an abstract of what you read.
There are articles books and blogs about successful entrepreneurs. Read and write it down.
Maintain a diary. Carry a note book when you meet someone or attend lectures anywhere. I carry and write even when traveling and sitting and waiting.
Spend about half an hour visiting websites of famous universities. You know what is happening and what will happen.
After each lecture, spend five minutes thinking what happened, did I understand or not, steps to clear doubts, etc and spend five minutes to write down the takeaways.
For each chapter or topic, write about four or five questions. Why, how, what, when, impacts, etc. The questions should not be explained, write short notes on or numerical problems. We need meaningful questions like is this topic necessary, what is the purpose – for example why a programming language, what is the view taken in the topic, how it will affect other views, is it explained well – people don’t explain second law of thermodynamics or Maxwell’s equations or even Newton’s third law.- ,what can be developed based on the concepts, what are the impacts, are there gaps, what are the applications, is it user friendly, comparisons what are latest developments, who are working etc. You can put these questions. This will lead to problem generation and curiosity.
Create checklists. They help a lot. Read Atul Gawande’s book on checklists.
Take one topic every semester, look for what is happening and write a critique.it can be a survey and critique and can lead to a publication.
Think about what to do and plan for every week.
Have goals, short term, medium term and long term – technical, social and spiritual goals.
Hope you got quite to get started.
Tough, right? Life is tough. Structure it, plan it. It becomes easier.
Any comments or questions?
1/7/2021 Part 2.7
There are some comments. Let us see some.
Mr G P Shekhar, an industrialist and also involved in education, comments on our education.
“Great views, professor, i endorse heartily.
Engg. students should think of solutions for real life problems. At bachelor’s level, there may not be original, path breaking projects/ideas, still, it greatly helps students to grapple with real life situations, analyze and come up with optimal solutions.
Last year, i was invited as an external reviewer for B. Tech student projects for an IIIT center. While a few had come up with good project ideas, even could demo, many couldn’t even define what their projects were, and how they were approaching them. Some took extremely ambitious problems to solve, that i knew could not be completed in the time frame they had. I expressed my views frankly, even addressed to the guides.
Interests should be kindled early , so they have time to do some homework. Lots of online info is available, students should be able to do something slightly unique, not just copy.
As you had stressed earlier, integrated solution would be great – when I visited VIT, i found that one of the projects was ” turning off gas stove upon 5 whistles from the cooker”
At graduate level, “turning off the gas” part could be challenging, but finding solution for the rest is fun.
How and what do we count, would there be a time limit, etc. Students should evaluate possible scenarios, so a ‘robust system’ is developed, in the time frame and budget.
A project guide’s input here is crucial. Mentoring them, posing some challenges and seeing now they find solution would help. “
Mr N Ramanathan has been commenting regularly. He says,
“Our system of education tend to kill than kindle entrepreneurship. Vast section of our populace that is formally less educated lives on its own enterprise by starting a small trade or business in the neighborhood. In contrast, most from the top tech or management institutions look for a lucrative and safe job in an MNC or Blue-chip company displaying little appetite for entrepreneurship. While lack of education pushes the former into business, this factor singularly keeps them in the same level without being able to grow. There is hence the imperative to break the mental barrier that no doubt is happening, albeit slowly. Oppressive regulations have also played a major role in dampening enterprise, more so in manufacturing. With increasing realization, times would be better for local enterprise.”
Very perceptive comments. Our academics know the problem. But could not experiment. If they have “I can do” attitude, changes are possible. Our scholar program which Shekhar is familiar with involves mentoring by us, meaning experts from IISc and industry, as faculty commitment was not effective. The quality and excitement improved. The students consider projects important and the system is not interested in it. It considers projects as a nuisance. Do you believe that Bangalore University in seventies wanted to abolish project work? We at KSCST fought against it and started the student’s projects program which is running successfully for four decades. IISc faculty played a great role in mentoring and evaluation. It is a great service and it was questioned and ridiculed by many academics. But it stayed because of student’s enthusiasm.
1/8/2021 Part 2.8
Mr Dhingra, GM retired from syndicate bank and is ombudsman for SBI now talks about the initiatives of syndicate bank. T M A Pai was concerned about poor people, education and agriculture. He developed barren Manipal into an educational and medical power house.
“Great idea, worth experimenting.
I may add here that Syndicate Bank’s arm Syndicate Agriculture Foundation had a concept FUTURE FARMERS’ CLUB wherein all rural branches were required to establish such clubs in High Schools to encourage students to experience new varieties of seeds, methods of cultivation, animal health care, etc. on demonstration plots under guidance of Agriculture Experts which we used to invite from Agricultural Universities, Krishi Gyan Kendras of State Government. Entire cost was borne by Syndicate Bank. Another concept qas FARM CLINICS for providing inputs, soil testing, etc. runs by people trained & assisted by Syndicate Bank. Similarly, there was another institution called RUDSETI, where training programs on Agriculture related activities were conducted ay Bank’s cost for rural youth for starting their own ventures, followed by loans. This concept was later adopted by GOI.”
My response
We should join hands with that group in our TBRP activities at Nitte.
Mr K V Ramaprasad of HAL shares his experience.
“I agree that BE students do not come out with the idea of what project they want to do for completing the curriculum. In my experience when students (known) approached me while I was working since their other avenues had closed for doing the mandatory project, I had enrolled them in our factory to do their project. All these projects are tailor made by me and the students were to collect some known available data to complete the project. Even the script of the project used to be dictated.
I also remember when I did the project at TCE, the title was given by the lecturer. Most of the practical electrical work was done by the Electrical Supervisor of the Electrical Lab. Only hysteresis loss curve was plotted by me. Of course, the script was written by me.
I do not know whether the present generation of students are able to pick up a project of their own idea and are able to complete it in time.”
My response
We get a lot of good ideas and proposals for project from students. Last year we got more than 400 proposals and this year despite disruptions due to covid we got around 300 proposals. Many are on latest technologies. As I said they have implementation issues. That is why we have mentors. I have been looking at projects at PESCE, Mandya. They are very good. Can you believe about 24 students teamed up to do a project on motorized go carts, which went for exhibition and contests?
There are a large number of students participating in robotics and drone contests. Students need to be directed and motivated. Innovation will happen. Society and parents have abdicated their responsibilities expecting colleges to do everything. It is our job to build confidence in children. Universities and education departments have failed in this.
1/9/2021 Part 2.9
Types of education
Our entire education is focussed into producing clerks. We need to come out of it. We need to understand the nature of our education. We can divide learning as natural and artificial. Formal school level learning in India unfortunately is artificial. We are yet to accept that agriculture, horticulture ,gardening,rural crafts etc are important parts of learning. They are very important and natural to most children. We do not want to include them in school teaching. Why? We don’t talk about nature,ecology, health, hygiene, local resources and their uses. We don’t talk in detail about local crafts ,heritage. It is shameful we don’t have Hindu thoughts like Vedas,Upanishads,Brahma Sutra,yoga, ayurveda,uttara mimansa, nyaya navya nyaya, Tarka,in our curriculum at any level- school level or university level. We don’t have any department set up by a major University to study and analyse our heritage thoughts and deeds of Arya Bhatta, Brahma Gupta,Varahamihirara, Bhaskara, Madhava , Bhartruhari,Sankara, Ramanuja, Madhwa, and many others. This is the greatest bias against our thoughts. We don’t accept them because we don’t know about them. We hate them also without reading their works. Very unfortunate. Western universities teach and analyse Hinduism in a highly biased manner and write books which is designed to give wrong ideas of our philosophy. They focus on sacrifices and castes and multiple gods. Is that Hinduism? We don’t study the vast literature available and enhance our knowledge. Also we think Hinduism is only about castes and gods. The general understanding of Hinduism is fragmented and hearsay mostly. We don’t know what Rig Veda says about living, governance, nature, management, resources, knowledge, truth ,many gods and goddesses with responsibility for a specific domain etc. The other Vedas are more detailed. We are totally ignorant of the contents. The heritage thoughts are remarkable. Panini was very scientific in Ashtadhyayi. We need to get out of our narrow and guilt complex and introduce these thoughts at multiple levels. Both Christian institutions and Muslim madrassas do talk about their religious teachings . This introduction of Hindu teachings will broaden the mind and it can inculcate values in children. Nothing wrong in critiquing the ideas. That was the essence of Tharka. I don’t think schools and universities will do this. Then how to get it to people? is our question.
The example given by Dhingra should provoke local people and groups to form natural learning clubs and skills clubs as well as study centres. Similarly we need to build heritage clubs and study centres to discuss works and thinking of many people I mentioned above. These can be set up voluntarily by schools or NGOs . We have also ignored Gandhi, Vivekananda, and many eminent people of last few centuries.
I agree that schools teach something ,but it is superficial and does not contain any information. It is not only that thoughts are available in Sanskrit but also in many other languages such as Tamil – Thirukural and Basavannas vachanas and Nagarjunas work.
Here is a suggestion from Mr Bala Ajjampur on clubs.
“I seem to be tracing my path down these lines all over again. Similar to high school clubs aiding education in farming related activities, please see this link https://www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au. It is directed to primary schools.”
This kind of learning and understanding our heritage will be a greater social service for various groups, . organizations and industries can set up clubs of many kinds and study centres to build future Indians. They can involve their employees also in study centres. Employees also can learn heritage.
A word of caution- enough negativism exists about caste system . We should talk about it but not only that. Even great thinkers could not eradicate it.
Secondly, I am not suggesting that teach only about gods. There is lot more thoughts available. Astronomy got mixed with astrology.
We have binary agendas. Hinduism encourages caste. So it is bad. There are million more thoughts. Hinduism also propounds gnana marga – knowledge path of life in addition to karma and Bhakti margas. Look at them. Create multiple grey levels in thinking and analysis. Remember we discussed that multiple solutions exist for a problem. Similarly multiple views of hindu thoughts or heritage thoughts also exist.
Since it is long, I am leaving it with you for serious introspection and so no post tomorrow. We will resume on Monday.
Greetings. Dks
1/10/2021 Part 2.10
I got several comments .
I am looking at two ,others being a general welcome. As anticipated by Mr Srinivasan of PNB, these two comments and my response are provided. Both these two people are very special for me. Both are trustees of FAER. They run Integra group successfully and very innovatively.
Mr Mahesh Jain, MD ,Integra micro systems has the following comments.
“We all believe that our educational system is more for making clerk…. However, how different is US education or European education? Or, all educational systems changed to English Raj!. Evolved Indian systems produced many significant leaders in every area and it continue to evolve. It has changed alot in 70 years… and it is changing continuoisly.
Indian thoughts are a composite thought of several identities… Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Islam,… evolved on this land… the Indian thoughts and culture could survive the realities of Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, Christianity, Sikh, … and evolved… we can rediscover it. We must expedite rediscovery of Indian thoughts.”
My response
There are two comments, one on education producing great thinkers.second on multireligious studies. Let me look at them. The first comment is answered along with Gopi’s comments .
I made a few observations about understanding Hindu or Indian thoughts. They are changed by your inclusion of every religion in the world. I am not suggesting a comparative study of religions. I am not batting for religions. I am neither religious nor irreligious. I believe religion has a role in the society. But Your enlargement to include Christianity ,Islam etc dilutes my idea about the neglect and misunderstanding of hindu ideas and thoughts. Most religions have strong study centres and focussed beliefs. Their theology is documented. But there is a lot of disjointed and discredited and misunderstood views about Hinduism ,and there is a lot of contempt for it and more importantly there is a very large body of knowledge we do not study. There are no departments in universities in India studying Hinduism and Indian heritage thoughts and philosophies.So I felt we should study them. I consider this as important. As usual we try to dilute these ideas. Such statements made earlier has led to disasters.
Dr V Gopalakrishna, MD, Integra software services comments on education systems
“Sir, I think we should look at “what USA did in last 100 years”. It has nurtured existing institutions like Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Princeton, Caltech and created new institutions like MIT, Stanford, CMU, Berkeley. Also, they seem to attract the best talent, retain them and make them perform on a continuous basis. Some where we are failing to get to these standards as far as our academic institutions are concerned. The Americans have a great advantage to attract the best talent from all over the world due to continuous immigration to that country.
But we are not able to reach at least similar standards given all our constraints like our budgets, reservations. Our best institutions look mediocre in comparison to them and act as feeding pipes to many of such institutions. I think China in the last ten years achieved much better standards relatively. We need to honestly introspect to see what is going wrong with us. Any inputs from our past, which can improve our current status, are most welcome.”
My response
Learning is greater than education. You learn attitude, thinking, behaviour, curiosity from outside. So those Indians who used their curiosity and thinking succeeded. But a major number of people didn’t. I think Gopi is answering Mahesh’ s views of greatness of our education. Our lack of innovations speak on this. We are satisfied people. I have been saying on many occasions
“What did an institution do to their distinction students? “
Success is a relative term. We have played a great role in IT services and in startups . Our restaurant sector has seen a lot of improvements. We don’t count them. The reasons for not having a Stanford or MIT or Oxford are
Curiosity is not encouraged.
Regulations do not give flexibility and changes. They encourage common minimum program and not excellence. They destroy individual initiatives. Training institutions produced trained manpower. In the fiftees to seventees, typing and short hand institutions supplied trained people to various organisations and many rose to the top.similarly, in eightees, IT training centres produce usable people. But this stopped.
Institutions are in fire-fighting mode not thinking mode.
The kill instinct is lacking. We take life easy, go upto a stage and quit.
Collaboration is poor.
Chalta hai attitude needs to go.
Our institutions look inwardly and are not outward looking. Diversity of students population including international students is low. Focus is exams and jobs
Mr Bala has a comment.
I think Hinduism was not part of the lingo till British gave it a name. Vedas, known to elaborate on way of life by way of collection of wisdoms, did not have caste system built into it, but did have categories of skills that has been distorted as castes, but don’t have a timeline for that. That is my humble understanding from whatever I could gather as my resources over a period of time. I believe, they are universal in meaning and wisdom and hence are still applicable for current lifestyles.
It is heartening for me to know that you are at the helm and steering our thoughts in the right direction and in a positive manner.
I am used to many dismissive comments, but from this group I believe I can be benefited in my continued understanding of learning and why it needs to be our focus.
We see the hands have glued onto this new device called smartphone almost all the time by the current generation. In our days, this was not the case and hence did use our hands for many other constructive purposes including skills you mentioned that needed our use of hands to learn. It could be a good idea to survey the hand tools that the current generation has used and compare it with the generation where there was no smartphone.
I will spend some more time tomorrow to think on how those golden treasures you have mentioned can be repurposed for today’s lifestyle.
No response from me.
Prof Rangaraj from SSIT comments on the aspirations of education.
India since 1947 is programmed to build semi race horses. Each individual has to attain his full potential in DIFFERENT ways. All will find a place as there are different races in capitalism. Semi Race Horses are not good anywhere.
Prof Dks: Mr PV Joshi, of Indian Bank has commented on our education
When I look back , I feel that our education system for last 70 years is focused only on creating herds of graduates in almost all disciplines based either on British system or American system. The system does not create national pride in students about education imparted or about nation . From 70s education system was hijacked by private institutions, mainly by politically vested interests
Govt aided them by granting free land allocations , facilities. About govt schools less said is the better
Of course there are few notable exceptions like IITs IIMs , IISCs and few others
Our ancient Gurukul type system was abandoned by British rulers and instead of creating knowledge society , they created un marketable graduates.
Those with exceptional or fairly good skills left the country
The principles of education promoted by persons like VIVEKANANDA , YOGI ARVIND were not given any value . Political philosophy decided syllabus where neither history , Geography nor Civics was taught seriously . Science was based on European model forgetting our scriptures likecVedas , Upnishdas etc The line between knowledge and wisdom is bridged now and presently only information is taught .
Unless patriotism built on systems adopted by Nalanda, Taksksheela , and our heritage is taught seriously , the present situation will continue.
At lease by 22nd century, we should have a system which suits our nation.
My view/My response
I am optimistic about our resilience. Asahesh Jain said, remember our education system produced many great people. Both Prof C N R Rao and Prof Roddam Narasimha studied at APS Bengaluru. We have seen many great people like sir CV Raman, Vikram Sarabhai, KS Krishnan, sir MV went through this system.