This speech shook me rudely awake , reminded me of my post-college long-term life goal(one that makes a contribution to human wealth). My goal is to build a excellent institution of learning, to train the dreamers and doers of tomorrow(not mutually exclusive). This place would rival the IITs in depth of knowledge imparted but would strive to create more well-rounded individuals who would be masters of their own destiny. I feel sad when the cream of India's IITs today prefer to chase that money-minting Investment Banking career or accumulate advanced degrees state-side for a career in academia. I'm not sure if this indicates a problem with their admissions filter.
(IIT =
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institutes_of_Technology)
In India, Education is a capital-intensive , profit-maximizing beast of an industry. The admissions racket is huge. Parents often have to 'donate' (fork out) insane amounts of cash (by Indian income standards) to 'reserve' a seat in an Engineering/medical school. (except the IITs and govt-colleges, BTW)
Breaking into the market requires a large windfall and the ability to invest it wisely in order to build the foundation of such an institution. I'm thinking tech startup route naturally, since that is the only thing that comes to mind w.r.t immediate skill scope.
I suffered no end of anguish when trapped in the rote-learning institutions i'd been shuffled through. At the very least, I dream of hacking it slightly for the better, for my unborn children's generation's sake.
Does anyone in America have the same thought, or are your institutions of higher-learning pretty much satisfactory? This article refers to High-school and onwards, while my focus is slightly narrower : the undergraduate 'professional' education in developing countries; It changes whole families' economic statuses due to the current nature of the global market. We need more startups in India just like the US does.