India has exam system, not education system

[gopi_vbboy]

BANGALORE/MUMBAI: In the thick of the entrance exam season, a furious dispatch to the Prime Minister from his own scientific adviser has termed such tests as one big menace.

Strongly recommending an immediate halt to the system of sitting for a pile of exams, C N R Rao, who heads the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (SACPM), said in a letter sent last week that the American method of holding one national exam before joining university is the way.

Putting it bluntly, Rao told the PM that India is said to "have an examination system but not an education system... When will young people stop taking exams and do something worthwhile?"

Referring to the exam overdrive, Rao briefed Manmohan Singh on the various flavours of examinations that dot a student's life: "It is important to relook the entire examination system including the system of final examinations, entrance examinations, qualifying examinations, selection examinations, and so on. Now one hears of a proposal to have a qualifying or accreditation examination for medical graduates and post-graduates."

Students who groan under the pressure of multiple entrance exams will cheer this advice. Citing the example of Joint Entrance Examination conducted by IIT, he said: "IIT entrance exams have the reputation of being difficult and purposeful, but they have also had a negative effect on young minds. Young people suffer so much to succeed in these entrance exams, and in the process lose excitement in education itself."

The lakhs who don't make it across the IIT gates, Rao told the PM, get exhausted and can't perform as well as young people with fresh minds.

Talking about the agony that the Indian higher education sector is in, the SACPM, in a brief document sent to the PM recently — accessed by TOI — noted, "Today there is not a single educational institution in India which is equal to the best institution in the advanced countries".

In view of the growing number of aspirants for higher education, the SACPM has readied a 10-point checklist of key problems and challenges. It has asked the human resources development ministry to set up a taskforce to come up with an action-oriented document within a year.

"We should seriously consider a possible scenario wherein the young India advantage enables India to emerge as the provider of trained manpower for the entire world in the next 20-30 years. This could be a worthwhile national objective," he told the PM.

Rao's checklist for higher education include:

Raising the bar: Provide all required support to 10 educational institutions to enable them to compete with the best in advanced countries

Look ahead: There's a manpower mismatch in many countries with too many professionals in some subjects. Prepare a vision document which foresees the problems 20 years hence

Inclusivity: Increase the number of fully residential schools up to higher secondary level in rural India to nurture rural talent

'India has exam system, not education system' - The Times of India


Whats your take?

[Piyush]

this was indeed a well said statement and of course, a fact
if we keep schooling days aside, what can we expect from our edu system?
i agree that there are enough colleges but where are the quality ones?
the whole country is filled with engg colleges
seems like our country is in the need of only engineers
there are very few good colleges for medical side
but wait...we have so many colleges in medical side...but they are mostly dental colleges
looks like our teeth are the top priority
with so much population in our country, we still are not able to prove the world that we can be a power in the world
when we say that India will be the most dominating nation in 2030s/2040s...we say that on the basis of our economy...poor people are getting poorer and rich people are getting richer

[gopi_vbboy]

our education system need changes....someone like anna has to lead to change it

[Faun]

...poor people are getting poorer and rich people are getting richer

We do have a growing middle class.

[gopi_vbboy]

education is a big business today...not service..thats the problem (atleast in engg)

[Piyush]

We do have a growing middle class.

well these stats are true for metropolitan cities and cities neighboring it
i was taking the stats as an average dealing combining all the cities of the country

[Liverpool_fan]

Spot on.

Our education system is full of outdated crap that, and discourages innovation and forces students to go towards rote education. Plagarism is rampant and students are encouraged to copy assignments, and copy paste projects in a rat race to get marks rather than learning or participating in projects and training. Students are only expected to sit and attend classes whether it will do good or not, rather than giving them freedom to be working on papers or projects if they wish so.

Just crap exams are there, where students are expected just to fill sheets and nothing else. Marks are allocated like random in government universities, while in case of private autonomous colleges, half of them offer extra marks to help their students.

Engineering is complete bullshit, and just produces lakhs of dumbtards year after year, not exactly their fault but they are misguided to the core by the so called "teachers" most of whom are clueless with their own subjects, and the books and the course they are based on is completely out of date, bordering on looking like retarded in this time. Heck the best of colleges select the streams or course based on knowledge of some selected subjects, rather than testing for the aptitude in the respective stream. Thus most students and parents are involved in a rat-race to get admission to best colleges, and there comes the those bloody coaching institutes, which are in actuality a business than anything else.

Education is rampant with corruption and money-laundering, private colleges are in a race to get admissions and cheat students with their lies about "100% placement" among other crap, and just fill their campuses with students more than their infrastructure can handle. In other places there are like 2 room colleges which don't even fulfill the basic needs of students. And there are crappy government colleges, filled with corrupt staff, and is just a place of politics. Exam delays, paper leaks, and what not?
A Microscopic minority of colleges may be good but they can't touch best of universities in the world by a longshot.

But what can one expect, heck even the CBSE which should actually work well barely updates its syllabi with subject matter being same outdated crap.

Many Europeans and Americans just call India a factory for producing clueless graduates, and the sad thing is they are dead right.

[gopi_vbboy]

Spot on.

Our education system is full of outdated crap that, and discourages innovation and forces students to go towards rote education. Plagarism is rampant and students are encouraged to copy assignments, and copy paste projects in a rat race to get marks rather than learning or participating in projects and training. Students are only expected to sit and attend classes whether it will do good or not, rather than giving them freedom to be working on papers or projects if they wish so.

Just crap exams are there, where students are expected just to fill sheets and nothing else. Marks are allocated like random in government universities, while in case of private autonomous colleges, half of them offer extra marks to help their students.

Engineering is complete bullshit, and just produces lakhs of dumbtards year after year, not exactly their fault but they are misguided to the core by the so called "teachers" most of whom are clueless with their own subjects, and the books and the course they are based on is completely out of date, bordering on looking like retarded in this time. Heck the best of colleges select the streams or course based on knowledge of some selected subjects, rather than testing for the aptitude in the respective stream. Thus most students and parents are involved in a rat-race to get admission to best colleges, and there comes the those bloody coaching institutes, which are in actuality a business than anything else.

Education is rampant with corruption and money-laundering, private colleges are in a race to get admissions and cheat students with their lies about "100% placement" among other crap, and just fill their campuses with students more than their infrastructure can handle. In other places there are like 2 room colleges which don't even fulfill the basic needs of students. And there are crappy government colleges, filled with corrupt staff, and is just a place of politics. Exam delays, paper leaks, and what not?
A Microscopic minority of colleges may be good but they can't touch best of universities in the world by a longshot.

But what can one expect, heck even the CBSE which should actually work well barely updates its syllabi with subject matter being same outdated crap.

Many Europeans and Americans just call India a factory for producing clueless graduates, and the sad thing is they are dead right.

+1 agree...even i have gone though this feeling in engineering

but its parents pressure in that makes you to join the race ....me being middle class cant risk cos we have to support parents after they retire...
and society that guides you on what is famous....all this confuses students for taking risk in career they aspire

[gagan007]

I feel like I am a dumbtard and a clueless graduate.

[gopi_vbboy]

I feel like I am a dumbtard and a clueless graduate.

hehe same feeling

[vamsi_krishna]

I feel like I am a dumbtard and a clueless graduate.

Don't worry. 95% are feeling the same. 4% are not realizing it. 1% of folks, well... gotta give it to them.

[himadri_sm]

i am not a graduate & maybe i never will be...i gave up engg. after two months of joining to pursue a course that truly inspired & motivated me. Something that i was always passionate about. my parents were also supportive so i guess i was lucky.i also do not plan on going to an office & staying in a job for the rest of my life. i am not bragging but i believe if you know what you want to do, you can always do it...but you need a well formed plan. hard work does not equal success but smart hard work does. you have to know why you are doing what you are doing. most graduates in india are a result of people not knowing what they want to do & joining any course that his friend or neighbor is pursuing or talks about. this needs to change. people should utilise their time to think of something new instead of staying buried in books & appearing for all the exams in the world just because everyone else is doing it.

[nims11]

i am in midst of these engineering entrances and feeling the same. i can't do anything new nowadays in the fear that i might not get C.Sc in a good college if i don't get my PCM right for these exams.

When you ask many of my classmates - "What do you want to do?"
most of them say - "I wanaa crack IIT-JEE" and no plans for future. the system is forcing students to think short-term with no long term aims and goals. there is a friend of my dad whose son recently cracked IIT-JEE. the guy(my dad's friend) is very annoying and i feel like hitting him whenever he talks to me giving free advice. he says to me - "Get through IIT and then get a 50lakh job, get married and take your wife to switzerland". he also criticized my "love for computer" as useless and said that it wont help me get a "good job".

[gopi_vbboy]

^^ even i comprised computer science seat in a avg collg for a electrical engg seat in top college...but i regret cos i loved cs so much but had to compromise for colg..but in the end i realised its ur interest thats important...not degree...we can be enterpreneurs if we have a real passion n vision

iit guys don't get 50lk job...may be 5lk to 12lk...the avg a iima cand gets is 18-25lk...50lk is myth

[nims11]

branches should be allotted on basis of aptitude of a particular student towards that subject. i know its difficult to implement but something can obviously be done.

i feel weird by that wont be getting C.Sc in IIT even though i feel like crossing the cutoff because a guy with a 3 digit rank has scored more than me in PCM.

^^ even i comprised computer science seat in a avg collg for a electrical engg seat in top college...but i regret cos i loved cs so much but had to compromise for colg..but in the end i realised its ur interest thats important...not degree...we can be enterpreneurs if we have a real passion n vision

iit guys don't get 50lk job...may be 5lk to 12lk...the avg a iima cand gets is 18-25lk...50lk is myth

i was tempted to point that out in front of that "guy".

[himadri_sm]

i am in midst of these engineering entrances and feeling the same. i can't do anything new nowadays in the fear that i might not get C.Sc in a good college if i don't get my PCM right for these exams.

When you ask many of my classmates - "What do you want to do?"
most of them say - "I wanaa crack IIT-JEE" and no plans for future. the system is forcing students to think short-term with no long term aims and goals. there is a friend of my dad whose son recently cracked IIT-JEE. the guy(my dad's friend) is very annoying and i feel like hitting him whenever he talks to me giving free advice. he says to me - "Get through IIT and then get a 50lakh job, get married and take your wife to switzerland". he also criticized my "love for computer" as useless and said that it wont help me get a "good job".

^^ even i comprised computer science seat in a avg collg for a electrical engg seat in top college...but i regret cos i loved cs so much but had to compromise for colg..but in the end i realised its ur interest thats important...not degree...we can be enterpreneurs if we have a real passion n vision

iit guys don't get 50lk job...may be 5lk to 12lk...the avg a iima cand gets is 18-25lk...50lk is myth

this is a matter of great concern...if you loved Computer Science, you should have thought about what you can do with it instead of worrying about the college & getting a job. if you have to learn PCM for this, consider it as paying your dues or a sacrifice. once you get in you should worry about your long term plans instead of thinking about getting a job & marrying a girl & settling down. india has so much potential that is being wasted. break the system. as the great poet percy bysshe shelley once said " Everyone is gifted. but some people never open their package ". this is exactly whats going on in our country.

[Liverpool_fan]

^^ even i comprised computer science seat in a avg collg for a electrical engg seat in top college...but i regret cos i loved cs so much but had to compromise for colg..but in the end i realised its ur interest thats important...not degree...we can be enterpreneurs if we have a real passion n vision

No need to regret. CS Engineering is shite, and you learn absolutely nought by the "courseware". Speaking from erm ...Experience.

[nims11]

No need to regret. CS Engineering is shite, and you learn absolutely nought by the "courseware". Speaking from erm ...Experience.

i heard from many that they dont teach well in college and i have prepared myself so that i can atleast learn things on my own if i get C.Sc!!

[abhijangda]

The main problem is that everyone wants to get fame, everyone wants to get popular. And for engineers, it is easy if you get admission in any of IITs or NITs. All think that when they will get into these institutions they will be very popular in their locality and hence will easily be able to get a girl friend also will get good placement. Even parents think so. If this would change then everything will change.

[axes2t2]

The main problem is the thinking of today.

It's like if you don't have a proper degree you are worthless/useless.

[gopi_vbboy]

i heard from many that they dont teach well in college and i have prepared myself so that i can atleast learn things on my own if i get C.Sc!!

If you have interest you a learn on own...teaching depends on college you join...iit do have good faculty...but 2nd and 3rd tier colleges faculty are not so good..unless lucky

[gagan007]

CS Engineering is shite, and you learn absolutely nought by the "courseware". Speaking from erm ...Experience.

Some of my favorite subjects in college were:

Digital Circuit & System
Data Structures
Object Oriented Technology
Analysis & Design of Algorithm
Analog & Digital Communication

I absolutely loved them. If this is BS then what should be best in your opinion. AFAIK, similar subjects are taught in IITs too. Maybe they are also places where knowledge is dumped into minds of some of brightest students in your opinion. I tried to clear IIT-JEE two times, but failed. I know what level of understanding of physics and maths do they require. Frankly, I was not upto it. That does not make the system useless (my brother, also studied in Kendriya Vidyalaya, cracked JEE and finished his B.Tech.)

Some of the above posts said that aptitude should be the criteria to get entrance in premier institutes. But what will you do with apti if you do not know the basics of subjects?

Please do not think this is an aggression, but if you are saying something, please provide proper explanation as what makes you think that way. If I am not able to land on a job which implements above mentioned subjects, is it college/education system fault?

May I know what are your achievements in life? If you do not want to share, it is completely ok. But because you are making tall claims and bashing education system, seems like you are a big shot intellectual.

I admit that there is scarcity of research opportunities in India but saying what is being taught is sh|t, is completely wrong.

[Piyush]

The main problem is that everyone wants to get fame, everyone wants to get popular. And for engineers, it is easy if you get admission in any of IITs or NITs. All think that when they will get into these institutions they will be very popular in their locality and hence will easily be able to get a girl friend also will get good placement. Even parents think so. If this would change then everything will change.

i get your point but that was not required

The main problem is the thinking of today.

It's like if you don't have a proper degree you are worthless/useless.

exactly
no one cares about natural talents

Some of the above posts said that aptitude should be the criteria to get entrance in premier institutes. But what will you do with apti if you do not know the basics of subjects?

yes i agree with that
but there should be balance between the two
i mean apt questions should be introduced in the cet exams too in such a way that a balance exist there
this will help to lighten up the burden from students and will increase the scope of critical thinking

[nims11]

Some of the above posts said that aptitude should be the criteria to get entrance in premier institutes. But what will you do with apti if you do not know the basics of subjects?

u misunderstood.there is a thing called cut-off in IIT-JEE. that should be the criteria to select students and branches should be allotted to them on basis of aptitude.

Please do not think this is an aggression, but if you are saying something, please provide proper explanation as what makes you think that way. If I am not able to land on a job which implements above mentioned subjects, is it college/education system fault?

no its not, its your fault..

May I know what are your achievements in life? If you do not want to share, it is completely ok. But because you are making tall claims and bashing education system, seems like you are a big shot intellectual.

no i am still a student who is preparing for these entrance exams. and i just presenting my feeling about the education system. precisely, the selection system.

I admit that there is scarcity of research opportunities in India but saying what is being taught is sh|t, is completely wrong.

i didnt say that. as far as school education is concerned, i am happy with it and i think school education(in good schools) in india is better than many good countries.

[gopi_vbboy]

Some of my favorite subjects in college were:

Digital Circuit & System
Data Structures
Object Oriented Technology
Analysis & Design of Algorithm
Analog & Digital Communication

I absolutely loved them. If this is BS then what should be best in your opinion. AFAIK, similar subjects are taught in IITs too. Maybe they are also places where knowledge is dumped into minds of some of brightest students in your opinion. I tried to clear IIT-JEE two times, but failed. I know what level of understanding of physics and maths do they require. Frankly, I was not upto it. That does not make the system useless (my brother, also studied in Kendriya Vidyalaya, cracked JEE and finished his B.Tech.)

Some of the above posts said that aptitude should be the criteria to get entrance in premier institutes. But what will you do with apti if you do not know the basics of subjects?

Please do not think this is an aggression, but if you are saying something, please provide proper explanation as what makes you think that way. If I am not able to land on a job which implements above mentioned subjects, is it college/education system fault?

May I know what are your achievements in life? If you do not want to share, it is completely ok. But because you are making tall claims and bashing education system, seems like you are a big shot intellectual.

I admit that there is scarcity of research opportunities in India but saying what is being taught is sh|t, is completely wrong.

Agree ...if we have interest in course we take....it will be easy...i think he was pointing about syllabus being outdated

[The Conqueror]

Surfing net, logging into face books

I was shocked to note poor grammar : http://www.iitk.ac.in/esc101/current/Lectures/lect1.pdf
FACE BOOKS ?

ESC101N: Fundamentals of Computing For those interested see lecture notes of the highly acclaimed IITK.
Is this what we deserve after working so hard studying irrelevant subjects to get in such institute?

[Liverpool_fan]

Some of my favorite subjects in college were:

Digital Circuit & System
Data Structures
Object Oriented Technology
Analysis & Design of Algorithm
Analog & Digital Communication

I absolutely loved them. If this is BS then what should be best in your opinion. AFAIK, similar subjects are taught in IITs too. Maybe they are also places where knowledge is dumped into minds of some of brightest students in your opinion. I tried to clear IIT-JEE two times, but failed. I know what level of understanding of physics and maths do they require. Frankly, I was not upto it. That does not make the system useless (my brother, also studied in Kendriya Vidyalaya, cracked JEE and finished his B.Tech.)

Some of the above posts said that aptitude should be the criteria to get entrance in premier institutes. But what will you do with apti if you do not know the basics of subjects?

Please do not think this is an aggression, but if you are saying something, please provide proper explanation as what makes you think that way. If I am not able to land on a job which implements above mentioned subjects, is it college/education system fault?

May I know what are your achievements in life? If you do not want to share, it is completely ok. But because you are making tall claims and bashing education system, seems like you are a big shot intellectual.

I admit that there is scarcity of research opportunities in India but saying what is being taught is sh|t, is completely wrong.

Let me see what is wrong, never minded Digital Electronics based subjects, but they were not of an interest to me so won't talk of them, but I'll talk of the topics and subjects which were supposed to interest me. Regarding these subjects (DE and communication based), I only felt too much was fed in just a short semester, and sadly most of it was forgotten.

Let's start with programming. Hmm so how should programming be taught? Just put 100 pages of theory of this that and there and absolutely no proper instructions on actual programming, just 1-2 lab classes that's it?

Programming C? Using antiquated compilers like Turbo C++? void main()? gets()? conio.h? Some random questions on prinf("%d%d%d", a++, a--, ++a);? Mixing half the concepts of C and C++? While shift the entire focus was on some bleh generation computing or some blah someone said this and that. Books like Lets us C by Kanetkar sum up C programming education in India.Excellent education, eh?

Data Structures? Let me see. Just some theory with no concrete implementation? Still using those fail methods above? With no actual focus in understanding. Absolutely no intent on learning the implementation. But who cares as long as you can write the same written in book in your answer sheet.

Object Oriented Programming? Again the same as C subject, confusing concepts of C and C++. Fail and outdated programming approaches, "iostream.h", no actual insights on projects on analysis of real world cases. Just rote the definitions, random examples and vormit.

Analysis and Design of Analysis? Yup just rote the algorithms line by line and vormit in the exams. No one cares if you learn what's their actual use and understand their implemention.

Other theoretical subjects like Finite Automata and Discrete Mathematics, quite "easy" subjects to master in some damn 4 months isn't it with like 4 other subjects, assignments, etc. hanging over the student. Oh wait it's again just rote and vormit, no one gives a bloody damn.

I can repeat the same for Internet Technology based subject, outdated markup, and just again rote TCP/IP, etc. and vormit, put in some random bits for socket programming without even basics of C being clear. Who cares if students can't actually understand what is DOCTYPE, just rote that doctype line it will do.

Operating Systems, just rote those random topics all over again.

Database Management System. Well not so bad. Actually enjoyed it. Still would have preferred more practical approach there.

Intelligent Systems, Neural Networks; frankly have little clue what they are about. Will probably have to ride through them when they come. I know it will be rote and vormit all over again.

Microprocessors? Just learn the pin diagrams and so called architecture diagram and vormit.

Networking? Well you are free to be clueless to be able to connect to system or heck describe what a switch looks like, and free to have no idea of sockets (aside from definition), but you are fine if you can just make the OSI model or TCP model.


Practicals? Yup just make a practical file and get it CHECKED. Whether you did or anything or more importantly learnt, is matter of no concern.
Projects? Most are copy paste from the interwebs. Just copy paste and put it into a beautiful spiral bound, that is what desired here.

And I forgot to mention how the first year, a very vital year to build foundations is wasted in the excuse of common subjects.
------------

As for getting admission in colleges, it should be based on aptitude plus knowledge on that branch, well IMO at least.

As for achievements in life, well I'm a pre-final year, and cosidering the college I got to, etc., I'll say it will lie in negative at this point of time.
Well, I hope I will eventually achieve.

As for bashing our education system, I will. Considering the amount of graduates passing out of colleges, heck even IITs and NITs, how many innovations have actually happened there. How many papers and projects come from Indian colleges? Heck the innovation coming from cream of our colleges can't touch the knees in other Asian education systems.

All right I am speaking in perspective, from average "local" colleges of me and people I know, but I have had a look at NSIT's bits too wasn't that so much better. Have one look who uses "Turbo C++" in the world, answer will be clear. And those comments on the programming posts of Indian students.

And I don't claim to be big shot or anything just somewhat frustrated, and frankly tired of this "Indian education rocks" bullshit. Or our delusion of being better of Americans/Chinese/Europeans, etc.

[gopi_vbboy]

I was shocked to note poor grammar : http://www.iitk.ac.in/esc101/current/Lectures/lect1.pdf
FACE BOOKS ?

ESC101N: Fundamentals of Computing For those interested see lecture notes of the highly acclaimed IITK.
Is this what we deserve after working so hard studying irrelevant subjects to get in such institute?

mobile phone ofense

[The Conqueror]

mobile phone ofense

Really? Is that engineering? Exams asking to create a simple a+b program?

[nims11]

we had a question in C.Sc board exam this year - "What is web 2.0?"
you will be surprised that all my class mates except 1(+me) were not able to answer this question, just because it isnt given in sumita arora. after the exam, the topper of my class said me that he wrote -"it is a web browser"!!

As for getting admission in colleges, it should be based on aptitude plus knowledge on that branch, well IMO at least.

+1
that's what i am trying to express...