What’s wrong with our Education System?

For the last two weeks all National Newspapers are running a story on the sexual assault charges on the Vice Chancellor of Jayaprakash University, Bihar. Yesterday’s Patna Edition of Times of India covered a news on this issue under the title: “Only persons with integrity must be appointed as VCs:Academics”. The article reads – “Unless a foolproof mechanism is evolved to select persons of competence and integrity for these highest academic offices, the universities would continue to be administered by such ‘tainted’ people… In Bihar, more than half a dozen VCs have been accused of various charges of financial irregularities and some of them have been imprisoned.”

Isn’t it sad to see the state of the Educationists and the Academic Administrators of our country? What would be the quality of education that they and these universities would be imparting? The Christian philosopher C.S. Lewis very rightly said, “Education without values makes man a more clever devil”.

What we read in the newspapers are only the tip of an iceberg! In the last two days alone I have been hearing stories after stories on corruption in our Educational Institutions & Systems. One person in the committee that inspects and approves technical institutions, on an occasion of inspection asked for and received 20 silk sarees (to approve an institute that did not fulfil all the norms); another gave bribe in 8 digits to get the highest post in an university. There is corruption in the approval of Study Centres too by Universities. Everything happens for money in the form of bribe! All of this in turn affects the students. Once a person to a high post in such Educational Institutions they start getting back the money through all means. Nothing happens without bribing. Approval of printing presses, study centres, lab product & other purchases, using of UGC grants, etc.  

 

The students and their parents are the ones who suffer. The high cost of education is mainly because of corruption. The parent suffers from the day they give birth to the child. All of their earnings are saved to bribe their children’s education. We not only need academicians with integrity, the whole education system in India needs change.

 

Please read the insightful article in The CALL on the title ‘Wholesome Education: A need of the hour’. The article reads:

“Therefore, it is high time for us to introspect and provide true wholesome education to our children. Whole some education seems to be a mere slogan shouted in the corridors of today’s educational world. Those who coined the term, ‘wholesome education’ deserve our applause and appreciation, but its real essence seems to be missing in the kind of education that is offered under its banner today. Therefore the term wholesome education tended to become a near-misnomer.

What is wholesome education in the real sense?…….”

Read this article in the first quarter issue of 2011 of The CALL under the column ‘Red Hot-Contemplating the Contemporary’.