Kapil Sibal recently brought out some extremely radical proposals to reform the education system in this country. While his proposals have attracted both praise and criticism, they surprisingly haven't undergone as much analysis as I had hoped they would.
The truth is that I am always suspicious of grand, sweeping reforms. They promise a lot but always deliver below expectations and sometimes, such overhyped claims have disastrous consequences (just recall Mao Tse-Tung's "Great Leap Forward" or closer home, the glorious dream of Nehruvian planned economy). That is why it is all the more surprising as to why such a vast shakeup of the education system isn't being subject to greater scrutiny. This of course, doesn't mean that I am in any way, against educational reforms. I have personally suffered due to this groaning arthritic dinosaur that we call an education system and I definitely feel it is time to bring in some change. The question is whether Kapil Sibal is bringing in the right kind of change.
There are some proposals put forward by Sibal that I am pondering over right now. For instance, his decision to replace the current system where a student is judged by his or her percentage in the exams with a percentile or a graded system. Grades seem fine to me but percentiles don't. If a student is being evaluated, he or she ought to be judged according to certain absolute and fixed parameters which do not depend upon the relative performance of a student's peers. Some might argue that some of the most renowned institutions in the country (such as the IIMs) depend upon percentiles but my position is that at Class 10 (or 12), you ought not to judge someone's capability to be in a particular institution. Rather, you should be judging certain basic and essential skills that every person requires in order to survive in life. This is why grades are better than percentiles at the Class 10 or 12 level.
Grades are also better than percentages because that way, they do not reduce the admission process to an unholy lottery. Tell me, what is the difference between a student who scores, say, 94% and another who scores 95%? Nothing but pure luck. Yet, if a college's cut-off is 95%, the second student gets in while the first does not. Grades are not wholly devoid of such flaws (for instance, it does seem unfair to bring someone with 90% and 80% under the same category) but they are infinitely better in the sense that they will force colleges to stop relying on worthless cut-off percentages and make them examine other aspects of a student's character such as his or her acumen in sports or cultural activities. So please, Mr Sibal, if you are planning to replace the percentage system, bring in grades, not percentiles.
Another proposal by Kapil Sibal is something that I am totally against and this is the introduction of a common education board across the country. India is a country with a variety of people belonging to all sorts of economic, social and cultural classes and to bring them all under one board is really ridiculous. By doing so, you are condemning every student to be subject to a syllabus that caters to the lowest common denominator and in a country like India, that common denominator is very very low indeed. The lowest and most downtrodden classes of the country need an education system that is vastly different from a system that caters to the upper classes and for this, the presence of multiple education boards is a must. Sure, it creates elitism and all that, but these are side-effects whose influences must be borne and reduced as much as possible. Perhaps, the best solution would be to treat all students coming from every board as equal (in other words, banning separate requirements for students of different boards). Perhaps not. These are issues that still need to be tackled but a common nation-wide board of education is definitely not the solution.
Finally, there is Kapil Sibal's proposal to allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India and private universities to operate as well. The move to introduce foreign universities is a welcome one. Such a move will create competition and hopefully, force Indian universities to ramp up their programmes in retaliation. Anyone who is afraid that Indian students will be 'corrupted' by these universities should remember that hundreds of Indians go abroad every year and many of them come back. Additionally, I'm sure the government will make some efforts to monitor these universities.
With regard to private Indian universities, my views are mixed. I do believe that the whole concept of not allowing private funding for universities should be done away with. At the same time, I am a little concerned about the prospect of 'shareholder universities'. I have doubts about this concept regarding the extent of influence that shareholders might exert upon university boards and whether this may result in some negative pay-off. However, it is time we acknowledged that our present state of funding educational institutions is pathetic.
All in all though, none of this really matters to me right now. Hopefully, I will be done with education in a few years and won't have to worry about nonsense such as entrance exams and cut-off percentages anymore. However, I am still concerned about such matters simply because I have seen my share of misfortunes due to an unsympathetic and inefficient educational system and am eager that no one else experiences it.
