A Brighter Tomorrow


A Brighter Tomorrow



Knowledge, education and employment; it is fascinating how these three are intertwined. Gaining knowledge has been a coveted aim in India.



In ancient India, only a select few had the right to learn and learning was often in the form of memorising. Today, in 'modern' India, the emphasis is still on cramming information and not on applying knowledge. If India is to take its place as a global superpower we need to be a powerhouse of original ideas, skills and thought-provoking leadership. India should revamp its education system to engender the application of theory. It cannot be said that Indian path-breakers like Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Azim Premji and Lakshmi Mittal have excelled because of the education system.




They excelled despite it. As a country with over a billion people, we should have lakhs of leading entrepreneurs, inventors and researchers, but we are held back by the lack of encouragement and uncertain reward for this kind of originality. Leadership and innovation, if not nurtured, will die a slow death.




Holistic evaluation in a populous country is difficult but this is not an excuse to avoid it. There is no one-size-fits-all prescription for holistic evaluation. The evaluating methodology has to be devised after a comprehensive study of the concerned institute. Percentage-based cut-offs and entrance tests that are quantitatively weighted make the job easier for the selectors but this is not necessarily a job well done. Though much is said about brain drain, little has been done to prevent it. Quality educational institutes need to be created so that bright students do not go abroad to study in the first place. Open recruiting practices should be the norm, so that the students who've already left can be enticed to come back home to promising careers.




For a start, companies should have an active link on their websites to invite applications from fresh out of college foreign educated Indians. While no education system in the world is perfect, some countries are striving hard towards getting it absolutely right. In India, we often underestimate the value of holistic evaluation, preferring instead to box people in numbered categories that are considered tangible. But some of the greatest gifts we have are those of leadership, creativity and ideas and these cannot be quantified or sold in a bottle.

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