Indian Undergraduate Education

Indian education system seldom encourages participatory learning. Textbooks are bibles that guide you through your judgment day - the final exam. Questioning (forget challenging) textbook wisdom is considered a blasphemy. I majored in Botany for my undergraduate degree and liked it very much and I very much wanted to specialize in biotechnology for my Masters. But after my three years of graduate education (or the lack of it) at ZGC Calicut (the alma mater of the great of V K Krishna Menon) I realized that I was under-equipped to pursue for any rigorous advanced master’s program in Biology. I still recall a lecture for a plant physiology course during my second year at ZGC. The teacher was explaining root pressure theory and an experiment to prove it. I asked her curiously if capillary force can be an alternative explanation to the results of that experiment... she was angry at me and said something like this "The text book says it is root pressure, so it should be root pressure. If you write something else you will get a zero for your answer". This is just one instance... Educators (lecturers, professors, tutors, principal etc) at ZGC were less of knowledge creators and disseminators and more of self-appointed, draconian disciplinarians. Attendance was a must, students were expected to address their professors as Sirs and Madams, speak to them in a very respectful tone (i.e., not to challenge or question the content or any ideas they expressed), dress “like students” and write down whatever they dictate in class… any transgression was met with “serious consequences”… (the situation was no different (sometimes even worse) in other colleges in India). I considered quitting this program many a time, but a basic undergraduate degree of this sort, even if it doesn’t equip you to get into top any worthwhile advanced master’s program in that discipline, it is a prerequisite for many jobs (even menial ones) in India. On the bright side, once you get this degree you could move flexibly to an MBA, as I did, or a Masters in Computer Application (thanks to the heavy demand for computer engineers in the country). A majority of my classmates that I am in touch with are pursuing CS, IT and ITES careers. Being able to pursue an MBA after this worthless undergraduate degree came as a second lease of academic life for me and luckily I found management education more fascinating, thanks to some excellent professors I had at TKM, who though were not into knowledge creation, were certainly topnotch in knowledge dissemination and held an open mind to new ideas.

I dont say that undergraduate education in India is worthless. I think education happens outside the classroom. My best memories at ZGC had been outside the class room. I did make some true friends, learnt some serious life lessons and interacted with some great minds (Vasudevan Unni in particular). But all of that was outside of the classroom. I missed out on that part. All I was trying to communicate was the quality of the "in-class" experience was not good enough to foster creativity and knowledge creation or to even remotely instill any passion in purist of it. I too hardly met the "student requirements". In fact, I was almost thrown out of college on a couple of occasions due to my supposed "misdemeanor" (as defined by some of the self-appointed, and let me add hypocritical, disciplinarians) in the Men's Hostel - drinking alcohol  But I made good use of the campus life. I still cherish those memories (Playing Bartley in Riders to the Sea, for instance) and I laugh at the idiotic gimmicks of the "self-appointed, hypocritical, disciplinarians"   

Religion in Schools

The role of religion in education is often debated, especially when it comes to primary and secondary education, where the minds of the students are tender enough to be influenced by vested interests. In most democratic settings, both Education and Religion are part of the fundamental rights - the right to education and the right to religious practice. I really value both these rights. The trouble however comes when the two are mixed.

In many settings religion does play a vital role in education. In a country like India, blame it partly on the lack of good public educational system, most privately run educational institutions have a religious affiliation. I do not see it as a problem. If we consider education as an essential service to humanity, then the religious institutions (not religions)that, at least in paper, claim to be dedicated to the service to humanity are more likely to end up starting schools and universities.

Unfortunately, the involvement of religious institutions in educational systems come with a premium - vested religious interests start making inroads into structure and content of the educational lives of campuses.

In my case I had by primary school education from a CSI Mission school in Ooty, Secondary education from a Catholic school also in Ooty, Bachelors degree from a Hindu college in Calicut and MBA from a Muslim run institution in Kollam. In all these places there were elements of the respective faiths pervading into everyday educational life, if not in curriculum (which was often controlled by the secular state) certainly in other ways of educational life. In my primary school it was the "Jesus is the King" prayer song followed by the "Fun - Sunday School" Everyone knows what goes in those Fun Sundays :). In my secondary school it was my deeply religious Zoology teacher who said in a hushed tone after teaching evolution theories, "Dear students, these are only meant for the exam... in reality we all know the origin of life on earth"(the "we" in this case was those students he was able to convert to his faith :). Things were not much different in my Hindu college - An arrogant Hindu Fundamental principal (fortunately he was there only during my last year) was hiring former ABVP cadres(The student wing of the RSS, so to say) as lectures - anyone's easy guess as to what impact that would have had in the campus. My Muslim MBA institute was doing it differently - they had separate prayer rooms for Muslim students. Every Friday a bus was arranged to take all my Muslim friends to the nearby Jumma mosque. Whats more, our class timings were adjusted on Fridays to accommodate the schedule of the Mosque goers.

Here is a link to an episode from the Simpsons. It is a satire on how Religion is sneaked into classrooms by vested religious interests. Check it out.

Another amazing lesson in the sociology of laws from The Simpsons

Jan Lokpal supporters should definitely check this out...

http://www.videobb.com/watch_video.php?v=LIpEpLFEEvjc

Its episode 20 of season 21 from the Simpsons. It is about what a draconian law might end up doing to the society. I strongly believe that a corruption free society is utopia - arent we all corrupt at some level?

It is practically impossible for a wayside tea shops and street hawkers to legally operate in our country - they survive by paying some bribes to the poorly paid cop, who lets them have a livelihood at a minor premium. If the draconian law prevents the badly paid cop from getting his cut, he will try to put the poor hawker out of business (as the law would require) and thus rob him of his livelihood, prompting him to move towards some anti-social path.

That doesnt mean that corruption isnt to be dealt with. My issue is with the sort of red tape based corruption that stifles growth to meet some government official's or politician's private benefits. A starting point to addressing corruption is not to formulate a draconian law but to design efficient systems that suggests reliable turnaround times for bureaucratic matters and incentives for the bureaucrats to stick to those turnaround times.

A renewed BSNL customer care is an example of such a system (at least my recent experience indicates so) Further, it might also be useful to compartmentalize bureaucratic activities into two (not more) - the ones that receives service requests from the people and the ones that deliver service requests to people.

Reducing the interface between the ones receiving service requests and the ones delivering services and motivating both to stick to turn around times would reduce the incentive and the propensity to engage in corruption, as the ones taking the request do not have anything to do with (ability to influence decisions) the final outcome, but they have the incentive to pass on the request quickly. That's my tuppence worth on this issue.

Social Movement Lessons from The Simpsons

The Simpsons never stop to amaze me - this time it's Lisa Simpson starting a micro media movement... Great lesson for social movement students :) An absolute 'Must watch!' It is episode 22 from season 22 - "Fraudcast News"

After you enjoy watching the video, read the following article (Carroll & Swaminathan, 2000) from the American Journal of Sociology on the Micro Brewery Movement in the US. I am sure you will see what I mean :)

http://www.sociology.psu.edu/graduate/Fall%202010%20Prosem/Readings-McCarthy/Carroll%20&%20Swaminathan%202000.pdf

Why the Jan Lokpal is a Bad Solution

Jus playing the devil's advocate here... In India now the Jan Lokpal is a favorite solution to fight corruption. I agree, the idea of a corruption free country feels very exciting and no wonder there are so many joining arms in this "war against corruption"... Certainly the uprising of this social movement against corruption is well justified. But my issue is with the proposal of appointing an ombudsman. I see it as an attempt to solve the problem of bureaucracy with yet another bureaucracy. I would need more space to break it down for you. See my following comments :)

Any system that is constructed to attain some sort of teleological efficiency that is expected to be obtained through rational calculations and controls is a bureaucracy. In this very sense the government is a bureaucracy and so too is the Jan Lok Pal. Unfortunately, once established for a certain teleological end, the bureaucracy takes its own life and eventually traps its very creators and the once replicating it and supposed to be benefiting from it. Hence, as Max Webber lamented, Bureaucracy turns into an "Iron Cage". There are umpteen instances where we are victims of such iron cages... We can speak at length about them but that would divert attention.

So, on the one hand bureaucracy appears to facilitate us in attaining some teleological efficiency (e.g., tackling corruption); however, it soon turns into an iron cage from which we have no escape. So how could one use solve the dilemma of bureaucracy? In India, the society has learned to deal with bureaucracy while also benefiting from it by developing a defacto market within the bureaucratic system - if the system is too rigid motivate the gatekeepers to generate some flexibility - Corruption, you might call it. This is the menace we have been trying to fight, right. Then, eventually the Jan Lokpal will become one such iron cage which will be dealt with corruption too :) Now you might speak about accountability and stuff... lets get to that.

Lets take anti-raging laws. It is illegal to rag in college campuses. That doesnt stop raging from occurring year after year. The senior students might develop their own system to monitor who will go and complaint and who wouldn't - a survival of the fittest, so to say. Many a time, out of vested political interest the junior student (lets say an SFI member) could even take vengeance over some senior (lets say a KSU leader) without any basis, by lodging an anti-raging complaint against him/her. Same goes with sexual harassment laws and many such laws. So a law is not a solution to tackle the situation. It either turns into an iron cage that starts controlling our every move or people find their own ways to mend it.

A potential solution will be to legalize many things that are now illegal. For example, I don't see many complaining against Tirupati devotees who get expensive tickets to get into the "quick darshan" ques. Now that would be corruption if that was illegal (as it happens in Guruvayoor). But the devaswom board has legalized it in Tirupati. Same goes with Business class travel, or any such paid service. Even lobbying for that matter should be legalized. At least it allows people to know who is paying for the campaigns of major parties (i.e., is there a hidden agenda). Without making it legal we would not be able to see who is behind the campaign (it happens under the table). Back until the 80s Gold was smuggled into India in large quantities, now we don't have that malice - every person can legally bring in 5kg of Gold to India legally now.

So the solution is not another bureaucratic system with too many iron bars, but a system without too many check posts. I rest my case here :)

www.puksays.com - A very good blog

If you enjoy every day humor, fiction, cartoons, politics, cricket, travelling, global warming, and a host of other things under the sun, you will love www.puksays.com. A blog by P. U. Krishnan, an author of couple of short story volumes and a regular writer to the Hindu's "Letters to the Editor". Visit www.puksays.com

On the current credit crisis

Ya, I totally agree with your observation, the credit crisis has indeed spread wide spread fear psychosis… I can see the effects of it in Hong Kong too; everywhere you could see people speaking about this… In fact, HKUST organized a panel discussion on this issue on the day when the congress finally decided to go ahead with the bailout. People are still not sure how the financial crisis that originated in the US market would affect the other markets (e.g., the Asian ones), but, they seem to be sure that there certainly would be an impact… Well, why wouldn’t it! After all, the emerging markets (especially the ones in Asia) have enjoyed the spillover of the uncalled-for liquidity in the US over the past decade and when the US markets get hit, it should have a spillover effect on the other markets that have benefited during the hay days of the US economy.

Here is my theory about the current financial crisis… Many observers suggest that this crisis is triggered by under-regulation of the financial markets in the US. Although this view could be true, it only explains the $700 billion (which I agree is a phenomenal amount), but it does not explain the base $30 billion of defaulted loans by the borrowers in the US (which though is relatively miniscule, is the underlying asset that bubbled into the $700 billion credit derivative crisis). Of course, some observers might immediately argue that this could simply be an incentive issue. Yes, it is an incentive issue, but the issue could be much deeper than mere agency concerns. The incentive system and competition in the lending market might have prompted the lenders (like commercial banks and other lending agencies like Freddie Mac) to lure borrowers into borrowing loans that they would have difficulty in repaying. However, this isn’t a recent phenomenon, this is how growth in the economy has been triggered for ages. Many of you would agree that liquidity could trigger economic growth. The central bank sets caps on borrowing and lending rates as a means of managing the liquidity in the economy. When the lending and borrowing rates are lowered, it results in greater credit offtake, lesser savings and more spending. This in turn enhances corporate profitability and it creates new jobs, which in turn increases the repaying capacity of the society as a whole and makes the economy stronger. So, what did actually go wrong? It might be important to look at the factors that might have affected this economic cycle in the US to get a better perspective.

The interconnectedness of the markets that Brayden was speaking about perhaps might explain this… I believe that the increase in liquidity in the US market might have had its desired consequence – more credit offtake, lesser savings, greater spending. But, the cycle should have taken a different turn from there… thanks to globalization. The US trade deficit explain some part of this story. Yes, people in the US have been spending a lot and the corporates have been gaining out of this increase in spending, but the share of the US spending that goes to demestic firms should have taken a toll…thanks to cheap imports from emergign economies. So, lesser profitability for US firms, which means lesser jobs in domestic US firms that have traditionally been employing domestic employees. Addionally, the cheap international labor market takes a major share of those remaining jobs in the US (what is popularly known as outsourcing). Net on net, there are fewer good jobs for an average American and lesser is the average repaying capacity of the Americans, which results in increased bad loans…

So… Are we as a global community in a bad shape? Probably not? As I said, the emerging economies have benefitted tremendously from the liquidity in the US and in other developed economies. These economies have seen their growth rate soring and even a high inflation and the resultant checks on liquidity seemed not to have slowed down these economies. Of course, when the key buyers (the consumer in developed economies) reducing their buying spree there would certainly be a reduction in the growth of the emerging economies, but in the last decade or so the wealth of the average individual in these emergign nations have increased and the drop in the buying capacity of the US consumers might be taken care of by the gain in the buying capacity of the consumers of the emerging economies. So… what we see might be just a shift in the financial balance and not an overall collapse…