India passed the RTE (Right to Education Act) which makes school education compulsory for children between 6 and 14 years. President Obama's Race to the Top program, urges Americans to study harder and surpass India and China in the race for the top jobs and educational opportunities. Keeping President Obama's forthcoming visit to Delhi in mind, are Indians and Americans competing against each other or collaborating with each other in the field of education?
Several such issues were raised in the Indo Us Youth Dialogue organized by Gateway House in HR College, Mumbai on Tuesday, October 26, 2010. A panel of youth interested in international politics was chosen for the discussion, which was headed by Dr. Craig Johnson. The primary aim was to formulate an agenda that contained issues which should be discussed by Dr. Manmohan Singh and Mr. Barak Obama during the latter's stay here from November 6-9, 2010.
The panelists consisted of 3 representatives from the US and 3 from India. A member of Gateway House told me that they had purposely chosen young people with interest in international affairs but no affiliation with any government or foreign relations offices. The reason behind this was, they didn't want any panelists with biases or vested interests. Although the panel discussion took place at a slightly immature level, it was nonetheless interesting for students and people like me who knew considerably less about Indo US relations. The discussion also saw attendance from other US students and during the open round, many biases and preconceived notions on both sides were apparent.
In response to a question about collaboration on education, Ms. Ali Rosen, a panelist from the US side pointed out that while there were a 100,000 Indian students studying in the US, the number of American students studying in India was barely 3000. The change needed to be in two directions. First, visa restrictions need to be lifted to make access easier. Second, on the Indian side, only the elites were able to afford education in the US. By means of grants and scholarships, this opportunity should be extended to students from poorer backgrounds as well. Also, in order to increase number of US students studying in India, American students need to be taught about India in their school curriculum. Ali recounted that during her school education, while she was taught about the middle east, Europe, China and Japan, there were no dedicated lessons about India. Thus, by introducing India as a specific topic, students would learn more about India and would gradually feel like coming here to study.
Another interesting point that came up was, in the near future, nearly half of US high school education will be conducted online. What will be the implications on US and India? One of the American panelists, Mr. Russell Mason said that US educational resources are good and aid in faster understanding. Hence, if it is available online, it will be crowd sourced and will benefit students from other countries as well. By 2016, he hoped India too would put up it's educational content online and allow US students to benefit.
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The motive behind making education compulsory, though righteous, is flatulent. In a nation where knowledge is mocked at and which suffers from a chronic shortage of quality teachers, making primary education compulsory will do little to improve the skills of the people. How many of our lawmakers are willing to set an example by sending their kids to municipality run schools rather than private schools? The reason why India is exporting quality work force to other nations has got more to do with the social injustice and hopelessly rigid "non-academic" criteria for getting admissions and jobs within India
ReplyDeleteIndians simply cannot compete with Americans because we have to compete on American's home turf. Be it funding for grad. school or job opportunities, an American student will always get preference and has about 16x more opportunities than an Indian. Even outside the US, in Europe and South-East Asia, an American degree is far more valued than an Indian one - even IITs are losing quality due to implementation of the only known method to ensure social justice i.e. caste-based reservation. Maybe when American students come to India to get degrees, Indians will get a fair chance to compete on equal terms
ReplyDeleteDue to the high principles on which US was born, an American treats an Indian the same as his fellow Americans. Can we say the same? Indians collaborate with Americans only at the high levels of research. At a lower level, its a case of living off the American's charity. Tomorrow what if F-1 Visa is cancelled, H1B visa is made extremely tough, and outsourcing shifts to Eastern Europe? What will the huge exodus of skilled NRIs belonging to open category do in India? Forget about this scenario, do we have any plans about assimilation of the existing generation of Engineers and intellectuals within our society to ensure the progress of the nation? An American collaborating with an Indian is symbiotic, an Indian collaborating with an American is for survival
ReplyDeleteI hope Obama's stay in India is marred by fewer controversies than the Commonwealth Games. Even if the end result is good, lets hope that mentally challenged politicians do not make remarks like "Their standards of hygiene are different than ours" - Indians around the world have already been embarrassed enough this year.
ReplyDeleteIt was good that the discussions took place among the students. We can do without the way mature adults act in the Parliament and at other places of dignity and integrity. Its true that both Americans and Indians have biases. The American history Indians know is taught out of a book, American culture is Hollywood movies. What will happen if Americans consider the rich, spoilt and mentally weak Indians studying abroad as the ambassadors of the nation and Bollywood to be the reflection of Indian culture? If Indians are unable to separate fact from fiction about American culture then some form of moral policing IS necessary
ReplyDeleteAmericans will think twice about easing Visa restrictions. When an Indian goes to US to study, he goes there to loot and pillage. PhD has been turned into a joke here. If job is unavailable then continue on to PhD after MS; delay graduation, for 7 years in some cases, till you get a job. Do research not in area of interest but where you get funding. Oozing selfishness, these shameless cases gladly hog the funds which can be allocated to a student with honest motives. When an American goes to Grad. school, he is one of the elite, the best of the best. When an Indian goes to Grad. school, he is there either because his parents have money to waste or his motherland treats the people of his caste like stray dogs
ReplyDeleteWhat was Ms Ali thinking when she talked of grants for Indians belonging to poorer sections?! In India, poorer sections = lower caste, that is the rule. Currently, for Visa and US admits, there is no caste-based reservation; so students can make it to the top only on talent. Ms. Ali, please don't destroy the hopes of a particular 1% of Indians by introducing such radical changes! In the past, we had the custom of female infanticide, now we will have economically-backward-but-upper-caste infanticide. Grants and reservations are there and are being used too; I have seen a "backward" student step out of a classy Mercedes with 3G cellphone in hand and claim a seat for EnTC engineering which was denied to an open category student with higher academic qualifications. Please, Ms. Ali, don't introduce this here, unless you want US education system to become the quagmire that Indian system is
ReplyDeleteIt will be very challenging to make India seem like a great nation to foreigners esp. when our own history books refer to a particular event as "The Mutiny of 1857" rather than "First War of Independence" and our national anthem is a part of a song written in praise of King George V. When Indians themselves have no idea about the glorious past and our history is what our British masters wanted it to be, this will truly be an uphill task
ReplyDeleteThere was an era when Indian Universities were the best in the world, when knowledge was called the one thing that increases by giving to others. Until our nation realizes that its true assets are not material goods, but its intellectuals, it can never reach a stage where knowledge will be freely available. A place where honest people struggle for survival inspite of doing their duty to the state, acts like making knowledge available for free will need a long time to materialize. The rich and powerful can afford to do so, unfortunately, in most cases, they are not the best people to be role-model educationalists
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of what you say, but you didn't understand what Ali was trying to say. She wanted scholarships or grants to be given to people like you and me, who have to sell a kidney to attain quality education there. It's easy for a person with loads of money to take the decision to study abroad. Middle class people like you and me need to think 10 times before taking such a decision. She wanted more scholarships and grants for people like us. When I said 'poorer' I meant poorer than rich people who can pay the entire amount of the fee without taking a loan.
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