Jayaprakash Narayan- A leader with a mission and vision

Many political leaders make tall promises and lure the restless public in want of votes. They almost show a Shangri La to the gullible public who fall for the gift of gab, little knowing the actual intentions. India has seen several such con men who, like fireflies make hay while sun shines and abscond with the citizen’s dreams. It is hard to find politicians with a missionary zeal. As somebody said ‘There is no education in politics but terrific politics in our education!’ Frankly how many of our politicians are really aware of our education system in depth?

At least when one talks to the Loksatta Leader his profound knowledge supported by authentic facts and figures, not to ignore the burning zeal to serve his countrymen, does give us a hope that this person ‘means and does what he says’. The Career Guide had a fruitful interaction with Dr.Jayaprakash Narayan, fondly known as JP to find out his plans for a better India….

TCG: In the existing conditions, with technology/thirst for education on rise there seems to be a gap between demand and supply in the field of education. Do you think there is a need for ‘subsidized’ education or standard education at an affordable price that can reach out to the entire population below the poverty line too?

JP: There is indeed a very deep crisis in the school education system in India today. Education has been ignored over a period of time. (A survey was conducted by the Annual Status of Education Report with the help of Loksatta which was its partner for the first two years. This was a survey on government and rural schools having students from more that 2000 families in 600 districts. Main revelation of this study was that more than 40% of seventh grade students, after completion of 7 years in the school could not read a simple interesting extract/text that was of grade 2 level, in spite of the fact that it was in the language in usage
by the students (medium of instruction as well). Another shocking fact was that 70% of seventh grade pupils could not work out a simple arithmetic division like a three digit number divided by a two digit number. This shows the appalling state of affairs. These seem to be small samples but they are the benchmark of our education system. To see the brighter side of things enrollment is very high which shows the children’s zeal for education, thanks to ‘Sarvasikshabhyan’ Constitutional amendment and allocation of funds, which shows that we are expanding. But the point I am trying to make is that in this process of ‘ushered expansion’ we have lost the quality. It is like this: because of the low quality education at the school level people who passed out to Higher Education are severely lacking in cognitive and analytical skills, besides communication skills which is most important aspect of education. At this level of transition we do not have an enhancement or ‘bridge’ programme to equip them with required skills they need at this level. With this superfluous knowledge students cannot move ahead in their academics, which will create a huge void that no professor would actually like to fill. Obviously professors/lecturers expect the students to be well versed in basics and wouldn’t dream of starting from the scratch! Surprisingly these are the ‘brilliant’ students who have secured more than 95% aggregate in their exams which are again rote-based .Thus when they come into a professional course they simply cannot sustain the teaching methodologies as they lack in application skills.

Knowledge alone does not fetch you anything unless it is put into use. Another most important aspect is language, which is grossly ignored. 30 to 40 years ago communication/ language was given utmost importance. If one has a flair for language, he/she would pick up other languages within no time. That is the reason why though I was taught in my mother tongue (Telugu) I had penchant for English and learnt it with passion. Language is not merely Humanities or Literature but it is a collective work. Unfortunately in our education system, undue importance is given to ‘core’ subjects, i.e. Math & Science where languages take a back seat. In fact ambitious parents discourage the students when they spend more time on a language.

They rarely emphasize on the truth that language is the basis of logic, communication and therefore collective work. And all human endeavours are about collective work, be it running a magazine or an institution or a political party! When human beings work as a team with communication as ‘core’ or ‘heart’ success is inevitable. To understand all your so called core subject one must have a strong command over the language. It is sad to see a student although having scored 90% in English by reproducing the given answers, failing when it comes to comprehension and creative writing. In this feature he/ she are way below normal standards.
So you can see where the fault lies and why Higher Education has become a sham. There’s an enormous demand for Higher Education in our country. The willingness of parents to spend any amount on child’s education is incredible. This hunger is increasing day by day, in the process of meeting these demands, the quality is getting diluted. It is heartening to see that today Dalits who want their children to study spend almost all their earnings (day to day wages) for education.
They even sacrifice their basic needs in want of education. Despite this the cyclical effect is taking toll on quality at every level. When a University graduate becomes a teacher with this shoddy knowledge he/she will again train/produce his/her replica, i.e. another shallow personality. (It is because of the poor quality of education from the grass root or the basic level we are continuing with the mediocre quality outputs, as they are entirely dependant on the inputs which are not very high quality either. As we see this cyclical process that will continue until we put a break to it immediately)

This is the reason why we need to lay stress on Higher Education. It was assumed in earlier days that if the school education is taken care Higher Education will automatically fall in its place, but now the results are showing that it is not the case.

‘Do not teach a child in an alien language in early childhood’
TCG: Government has introduced English medium schools in some Gurukulams with an aim to improve English language from the grass root levels. What is your opinion on that?
JP: The fact is that the world treasures English and the language holds its charm well above its counterparts. Today every parent wants the child to learn English to meet with the demands of the growing global market. Government policy to introduce English is undoubtedly beneficial but there are two major fallacies in this. One is the fact that children up to the age of 4 cannot pickup concepts unless taught in the language of usage, be it mother tongue or the language they communicate in. Hence the child needs to be taught in the language it communicates with the community around it, so that it becomes easy for the child to follow the concepts taught. The second fallacy: let us assume the first drawback is ruled out and the children can pick up concepts taught in language unfamiliar to them. The question would be, is there a staff competent enough to teach the children in perfect English? Ironically more 90% of the teachers in all so called English Medium schools cannot speak proper sentence in English without a grammar error. I do not blame the teachers as they are proficient in the language that is foreign to them, but trying to teach in the language you are not proficient is certainly a grave sin. The situation is like this -A Non-English speaking teacher trying to teach Non-English speaking student in an alien language is “Comedy of Errors”

Government’s anxiety to bring in English into the system is understandable but the ultimate produce that comes out quality deficient. Hence the solution for this would be, have a system where in the students are taught in the language familiar to them in the first four years of their academics. Also start English as a language from the first grade irrespective of the medium of instruction. Progressively, after the fourth and fifth grade make English as a medium of instruction. This gradual transition to bilingual mode will make the shift smooth and less agonizing for the students. It will also increase their exposure and awareness. This should be mandatory in private and public institutions. By fixing this mode of starting English medium instruction from grade seven he feels that children will have a strong base of concepts, knowledge and language.

TCG: It is said that there is a general degradation has set in, in terms of values, ideals and quality of students be it from rural, urban or metro background. Do you agree with that?

JP: I do not agree with the argument that things are getting worse.Forty years ago we dint have this kind of technology, awareness, development and comfort we have today. This shows the growth in technology and engineering. How can we deny the fact when progress is so obvious? Of course with the growing demands as we already discussed before there is an enormous need for good education, but we are looking at scaling it to higher standards. What we are doing is terribly inadequate. Today the world is well informed, thanks to the television and media’s tentacles that reach out to audience far and wide. Be it rural or urban or elite a person from all these backgrounds can operate a mobile phone which shows a human being’s immense potential/thirst for novelty/knowledge. This is where exactly the present education system is failing to suffice their demands in academics. This has to be done at three levels. We need to upgrade our system through

• Deeper understanding of the State policies- government should take up school and Higher Education as issue with prime priority like in the UK and US.
• Redesigning the infrastructure of the school and education content itself with focus on languages, medium of instruction
• The third step is to make it society driven, like projects related to education must come up multifold. This must be done at the school and college levels. Students must be exposed to different working sectors to know about voting, corruption, political system, elections etc. It is sad to see that rote learning takes them away from the current events of life! A typical Indian Mechanical Engineering graduate will not be able to repair a car that broke down, what for is the degree? On the other hand I go to mechanic who is invariably a school drop out, but can fix it, thanks to his zeal and skill. Thus it is only if one really applies the knowledge gained we can see a completely transformed world! We could provide employment for many, this way we can redefine employment as serving the society’s needs.

TCG: Today Intermediate education is very difficult to reach for many who have the burning zeal to study but cannot afford to. On the contrary there are parents who can ‘buy’ the seats for their children and push them into reasonably good institutes. This situation forces those parents who cannot afford these seats, to stake their belongings and get the seat. Hence a tremendous pressure is involved in the whole process of education that is more or less becoming business like. What can the government do about this?
JP: Adolescent i.e. 15-17 years is the most important formative stage in a child’s life. At this point a normal student who aspires to become ‘big’ in life is slogging in the four walls of the crammed classroom for 12 tedious hours with no other activity. One can imagine the amount of sluggishness that sets into the mind and body because of this. This brings out distorted uni-dimensional personalities who can bring about a great deal of damage to the society in future. Third most important aspect is zero utilization of the available lab facilities which is the only way to bring in practical knowledge.

Today if the student is busy mugging up the textbooks we cannot expect them to have hands on experience, can we? The answer does not merely lie in condemning or criticizing the system. Plus two cannot be taken as a separate education. Through the world, up to 12 years of school education goes on in a single stretch without a break. We can probably break up the system into Primary, 1-5, Secondary 6-12. Secondly we need to dramatically change the nature of evaluation and make it mandatory to have elective and non-elective courses. For example though the student is interested in doing medicine it i8s compulsory for him/her to do one subject like History or geography. Also those who are not interested in pursuing education and wish to take up a job must have courses in plus two that are skill based, like it is happening in many community colleges now. Here if this student wants to get back to mainstream education and has suddenly decided to study, not to work, they must be allowed to move out without loss of time in the transit. Thus we have a choice of skill based or skill and knowledge based education system or a combination of both.

TCG: But in this process didn’t we neglect our heritage, culture and values?
JP: We can integrate the school with these values. Once we plan to implement these we must be strict about the number of hours the student is going to be in the school. Also it cannot be producing robots again, but thinking humans who can be of some use to the society. Again merely talking about these things will not solve the problem, because there are several institutes that churn out machine-like students who again seek employment as means to sustain themselves and nothing to do with the society. In fact these institutes are in a way helpless as they cater to the parent’s needs. The effort these institutes put is not wasteful but the way they are doing is certainly inefficient. They are merely responding to a situation. In fact these students are definitely above those who do not get the opportunity at all.

TCG: But there is the ranking system too which is more or less an outdated practice?
JP: Exactly. But we cannot deal with this problem in isolation. Ranking is not the actual issue. The problem lies with the design of the education system itself.If we have a proper education and evaluation system other related issues like ranks will automatically get sorted out. But in the present situation if we force changes at this level things may not happen the way they should.

TCG: Out of 1500 educational institutes in Andhra Pradesh today there are hardly 50 institutes that were started by stalwarts in the field of education. All the remaining organizations were started by zealous businessmen for commercial gains. Education is more of a trade today which is hard fact. What do you think the government needs to do now?

JP: Take the two mainstreams, engineering and medicine today. In spite of all its deficits engineering is improving in quality as it has no choice, with increase in the competition. Engineering institutes are forced to upgrade their standards with students and parents have a wide choice to pick. Also with this kind of pressure on quality and demand for the course institutes have to promote themselves. But this is not so with medicine which costs a student a fortune. With huge increase in capitation fee and fewer numbers of colleges more and more students are moving away from medicine. Also the quality of education in medicine is menial. What needs to be done is Remove unnecessary regulation to start the institute.

If people want to make money they can do so through some other means, not necessarily an education institute. West has umpteen educational institutions but it never treated education as a profit-based venture. Private sector is dominant in the field of education but it certainly does not seek profit. In India almost all our private sectors are profit centers. In our country be it a scholar an amateur/layman the route to start an institute is the same, both have to go through the same process which is unreasonable. Hence remove this license logic. Let anybody start a college but make an exit barrier. Make it mandatory for the students to be tested at the time of completion before they take a plunge in to their career. This uniform testing scheme will screen out those who have ‘not yet reached the mark’. This may be as simple as it said but this will certainly put PRESSURE on all the institutes to work on their standards and develop their standards to produce skilled man power not mere machines.

‘Every system will have an independent rating or grading by private agencies.’
Since the faculty, course details, syllabus etc., is transparent hence foul play of any kind is ruled out. We can take the example of the well-known MIT, in the US which has all the relevant matter one needs to know about the university on the web including the course material, except of course the hands on activities like experiment which the students have to be in the class.

Non- technical inputs like humanities, arts, culture must be made compulsory. This will bring in social consciousness. Thus a multi disciplinary course will groom them into better individuals thereby citizens.

TCG: Youth today are into professional courses. They do not seem to be having a proper awareness/idea about the political scenario. Also they do seem to knowing much about the facilities/privileges they are entitled for in the institute they study. Do you think this is true? How can we bring a transformation in them?

JP: I do not quite agree with this because the student’s committees have a very good exposure about their standards and where their institute stands in the global market. They also have the nerve to question their management about the same and pressurize the later to improve their standards. All this is because of the increasing awareness in the students about different institutes their reputation, market value and ultimately job placements. Yes, in spite of this every deemed institute needs to have an internal democracy WHICH IS NOT LIKE THE GENERAL ELECTIONS OR BY ELECTIONS WE HAVE OUTSIDE. We have a choice; we can make it like in Australia where they have an alternative voting system, having an alternate candidate for the post.

TCG: It appears as if the government has totally ignored the educational needs of people who want to enter the professional courses, but cannot afford, for example there are many parents who cannot afford to pay in lakhs for their children’s professional courses.

JP: This may be true that the government ignored but we also need to keep in mind that the government does not have the capacity to expand. Also there are many institutions that are willing to make education into a charitable enterprise but wrong people are entering into this.

It should be mandatory to provide free education for the desirous and deserving candidates. Education loans will make the students more studious, responsible and hardworking. Soft loans that are interest free will benefit the students.

Scholarships to bright students should be done on an intensive level. There are many who want to sponsor student’s education. It is an honour to support s child who I deserving. People should come forward to support this, not just the government.

TCG: Private managements are now asking for separate entrance exams and counseling for all professional courses. Do you think this should happen?
JP: Yes, it can as the Supreme Court has passed verdict on this provided it is done within reasonable constraints. Hence debating upon this as good or bad is futile at this point. When SAT of America has a common entrance which makes things much transparent and clearer to the students, it is high time we moved towards common entrance. But it is very important that the examination is of standard quality and has a transparency. In fact the common entrance SHOULD BE for the whole country not just within the State. This will save the parents and students from lot of trouble.

TCG: Is it true that reservation denying meritorious students of many opportunities?
JP: There can be a way out for this ·It is not reservation that is creating a problem but lack of institutes. So let us increase the number of colleges.
·Prime focus needs be on the 12 years of quality education. State government should be willing to invest a fortune on this as we all know strong foundation is very important.
·Thirdly poor but deserving students must be given an incentive of marks that increases their chances of entering in to an institute. They may be belonging to reserved class but graded according to their performance.
·Last but not the least, no matter from what community you come from you should not be denied educational opportunities for want of money.

TCG: Reservations in education are bringing the SAME CLASS/STRATA of people together; as a result there is no cultural exchange of any kind as id ‘birds of a feather…..’ all the time. There is no personality development happening due to this discrimination.

JP: Segregation must be condemned. There should be a policy to promote integration. This separation will undermine the self esteem of the students and may lead to serious implication sin the society in future.

TCG: Today there are many deemed Universities. Certification has also become very easy. Is it leading to deterioration?

JP: Certainly not, deemed universities may be in scores but it is the exit test which when made mandatory will prove the mettle of the students.

TCG: Will the entry of foreign institutes create problem for Indian institutes?

JP: Certainly not, in fact it will help us strive to work upon our existing standards and improve them. Indians are very cost conscious and would certainly like to go in for good quality education at a fair price. We MUST allow the foreign universities to flourish here so that we will not have our students leaving our country in search of better education and greener pastures there after. Also why should we pay four fold for that which we can get at a good price here itself?

TCG: IB and other international curricula are flourishing in India today. But we have not heard of any other country besides India, incorporating Indian curriculum. What could be the reason?

JP: This is because our system is yet to reach to a global level and it is NOT application based but KNOWLEDGE BASED. We do have geniuses who will do extremely well with the right kind of ignition, but again we are ‘dampening’ the fire in youngsters by spoon feeding them and not allowing them to discover the world on their own. Hence there is a dire necessity for the entry of universities like Oxford to come and establish a certain standard after which we have no choice but to upgrade ourselves. This is how the ISB came to Hyderabad isn’t it? Obviously ISB is on the world map for offering quality education, so when more ISB alikes come into being wouldn’t we benefit?

TCG: It is feared that ‘slump’ in the US may prove lethal to the IT world. In that case where would all the professionals turn to?

JP: I do not foresee anything like that because there is always an insatiable thirst for man power here. I am reminded of L & T Chairman Mr.Naik’s accusation on the media. He says that the hype created by the media on IT drove almost every able student to computers. As a result there was (is?) a severe shortage of skilled man power in the other industries. This is true. A non IT sector cannot pay its employees as its counterpart does. IT people have the privilege of working from home even from India for the US, which is not so with other industries. The real problem is we have more engineers than technicians, more doctors than nurses, more engineering colleges than polytechniques and ITI s.

TCG: Finally, what would you like to say to the students?

JP:  Three golden rules are
1. Love what you do. A fanciful degree or a piece of paper is not going to decide your success but it’s your love for the work you do that takes you to heights of well being.
2. Youngsters SHOULD have an element of fun in education. If they do not enjoy their years of studies they are missing something invaluable. Unhappy and morose people make the environment dull and are LEAST PRODUCTIVE.
3. Last advice to the parents is please do not bother what your child does, but see HOW he does it. Involvement in the work or play will bring out the best in them.