In ancient times, education was seen as light which helped remove darkness of ignorance. But today it’s all about information dissemination or even contamination
When the President of India expresses his concern over the quality of higher education in the country, it certainly calls for serious introspection. While addressing the 125th year of Jubilee Celebration of St Joseph School in Darjeeling, he said: “No one from India has won a Nobel prize for the last 83 years. The last one to win was CV Raman.” The three other Indians — Hargobind Khurana, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Amartya Sen — got the Nobel while working abroad. As for Mother Teresa, her case was a different one altogether.
While emphasising the need to improve the quality of education, the President categorically stated that India needed to carve its position in the field of higher education in the world and opined that mere expansion of institutions won’t suffice. The President’s concern is justified. The problem, however, is not with intellect. That we have in plenty. Then, what is the problemIJ
This reminds me of an old story. The year was 1924 and the place was Calcutta University. That was the year CV Raman, a youthful science enthusiast then, got elected to the Fellow of Royal Society, a rare honour for an Indian in those days. While congratulating him for the achievement, Sir Ashutosh Mukerjee, the then Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University, asked: “So Raman, what nextIJ”
“Sir, the Nobel Prize,” was the confident reply. And Raman did it, with his strong will and his Vice-Chancellor’s constant support. Today, we have enough talented students, but very few Mukerjees. We lack academic leaders who can ignite as well as stoke the fire in the belly. The present system of higher education is too mechanically-driven. Our obsession with the measurable seems to miss the point. We need to remember that “everything that can be counted does not count and everything that counts cannot be counted”. The main purpose of education is to enable an individual to have a correct view of things. No wonder, in ancient tradition, education has been described as light which removes darkness of ignorance. These words from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad are worth reiterating: “Asato ma sadgamaya,/ Tamaso ma jyotirgamaya,/ Mrtyorma amrtam gamaya (lead me from the asat [fallacy] to the sat [truth]. lead me from darkness to light. lead me from death to immortality).”
Compare this with the objectives of today’s centres of higher education. Have they not become centres for information dissemination or even contaminationIJ If we want to have Nobel laureates, our centres of higher learning will have to create eminent thinkers. We need to ponder why the University of Chicago has a monopoly over Nobel laureates in Economics. It is the ethos, stupid.
The writer is professor, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad
(Jharkhand). He can be reached at ppathak.ism@gmail.com