On Path to Mediocrity?

Have you seen the security guard of your building busy watching reels on his phone? His job is to remain alert to what is going on around him, and yet, if he is unmindful of anything, it is precisely what is going on around him. Have you seen young teenagers on mobile phones with a concentration they scarcely show elsewhere in any task whatsoever? Why talk of teenagers—you must have surely come across mothers nonchalantly handing over a mobile phone to a young child to keep him from crying, and the young child is no less. Like a trained monkey, he starts pushing buttons which he knows will flash pictures that distract and calm him down. You must be witnessing these and many similar scenes around you on a daily basis. But have you seen a young child immersed in a book or focused with unbroken concentration? Or have you seen a child play with puzzle toys that help develop visualisation, critical thinking, and motor skills to use his hands dexterously? Most likely, the chances are that you have not—or only in a few instances—compared to the earlier scenarios, which are so ubiquitous.

In India, we are an indulgent lot when it comes to parenting. Our slogan is: “Oh, he is just a child. He will do it when the time comes.” No one defines when that time is going to come, and the child moves from small toys to bigger ones and from flashing lights to browsing the internet in a drugged stupor. In the process, isn’t education and intellect in the country taking a hit? Aren’t we, as a large nation of a billion-plus, getting left behind? The indications are strong.

Forget about the West, which has historically dominated in education and technology—countries like China, and even smaller ones like Israel, South Korea, and Taiwan have marched ahead in science, technology, and innovation. We continue to be low-paid, everyone’s favourite backend boys, for we bolster the profits of corporations abroad by hiring out our discounted (read: cheap) labour. We are happy when our children get a job, and if the job is in an MNC, we flaunt the credentials with unmistakable pride. What we choose to forget is that, in all probability, he is doing a job which is procedure-bound, clerical, and needs no particular skill set or innovation to speak of. With ostrich-like stubbornness, we are also not thinking about—or preparing for—the possibility that in the world of AI and machine learning, many of these jobs will ultimately disappear. Many will get merged into one. It has already started happening. Yet, it does not seem that our educational system is prepared for this. One of the entrenched structural problems is the bureaucracy of the educational institutions. We boast about our IITs and AIIMS, but if we were to look at the world rankings, the best of our institutions—where millions of middle-class children aspire to enter—figure nowhere in the accepted QS World University Rankings. Compare this with China, which has 15 universities in the top 100, and even small countries like Korea and Israel, which have three universities each in the top 100. The problem starts with the bureaucracy of academia. Our university system has permanent professors, much like the permanent bureaucracy we have inherited from the British. Now, a history professor has no such challenge, as the past remains the same—and the more experienced a professor is, the better his capability to describe the past and help students connect the dots. But for technical subjects of today’s world, technologies and system requirements change not in years but in a matter of months—and at times, days. It is then not experience, but contemporary knowledge and a strong connection with industry that is relevant. With permanent jobs, the academic community has neither the incentive nor the need to upgrade their knowledge. That also starts reflecting in the syllabi as well, which remain from a time gone by. Any engineering student you talk to will tell you that they learn most of the new things on their own and generally not through the university syllabus or teaching.

Indian universities, since Independence, have hardly made any name for any breakthrough research of any kind. We claim to be an IT superpower, and yet you will be hard-pressed to name a single IT product or software that has found worldwide application and has come out of India. All the Googles, Facebooks, Apples, Netflixes, Amazons, ERPs, and computer languages of the world have come from the West.

A single university like Harvard has produced 161 Nobel Laureates, and MIT has produced 105 till date. Universities of a small country like Israel, with only 97 lakh people, have given us 11 Nobel Laureates. Now compare that with Indian universities—our score is zero. The Indians who have won the Nobel have all worked abroad. Among the four Indians who have won the Nobel Prize in Science, except CV Raman (1930), all studied in foreign countries and flourished in those systems. And CV Raman too got the Nobel Prize in 1930, when the system was not in our hands. So, if we look at it objectively, the indications are that our education system has not really given the country any world-class scientist or engineer. It certainly continues to generate millions of unemployable unemployed with generalised degrees and questionable skill sets.

The issue here is not talent, but the system. The research and development budgets are minimal. Permanence, coupled with lack of accountability, has bred mediocrity within the academic system. The focus of education is getting a degree, becoming employable, getting a job, marrying, raising a family, and so on. Per se, there is nothing wrong with it—but when this becomes the sole aim of education, the spirit of enterprise, creativity, and innovation is completely gone. Whatever spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation we are witnessing in our country in a few areas is too small for a country of our size, and it is taking place not because of our education system but despite it. It is a tribute to our young founders, entrepreneurs, and business folks that they keep the wheels moving solely on their own grit, with little support from those who enjoy permanence and perks with no accountability.

Today, we are living a life that our elders will not be able to identify with at all. In a few years, the way we work and live will again be altogether different, and we will find it hard to relate to. So, the societies that will innovate and be part of producing the technologies and solutions—which, in turn, will govern our lives in the coming times—will lead, and the rest will only be marginalised followers. Do we want to be led while forever resting on stories of what a glorious country our India was? Or do we want to be part of the new world, which is replete with opportunities for those who invest in education and technology? If a deep surgery of the education system is not carried out to make it in line with the needs of the AI-driven world that is hurtling towards us, things will continue to slide. The time to carry out deep structural reforms is now—or it will be never for us.

Views expressed are personal