Students are the victims and culprits of India’s broken higher education system • Hacker News Board

Re: Students are the victims and culprits of India’s broken higher education system

#11

Post by jbattle » Thu, May 23, 2013, 1:36 PM UTC

lake99 wrote: post #7

I agree that nationalism is ruining India. But, this article paints quite a one-sided picture. You can see that in this sentence: "Indian students are taking their useless Indian liberal arts degrees and going abroad to get real ones that signify a real education". See? That's just it! Most people who do well in high-school get pushed into technical fields. My cousins are mostly engineers or doctors, and a few are la…

I'm a little confused - you are saying the article is overstating things, but that degrees in science, engineering, academia, and possibly medicine are "mostly useless"?

Re: Students are the victims and culprits of India’s broken higher education system

#12

Post by ilamont » Thu, May 23, 2013, 1:38 PM UTC

I had a history professor who attended Berkeley in the 60s. He recalled the instructional methods used by one of his own professors at Berkeley: He simply got up to the podium, opened a textbook, and started reading. There was no discussion or chances to ask questions. As I recall, he indicated that this was a method of lecturing that had its roots in European academia.

A question for HNers from India: With such a long history of sending students to British and American universities, are Anglo-American methods of teaching, research, mentoring, etc. transferred back to Indian universities by returnees who start academic careers?

Re: Students are the victims and culprits of India’s broken higher education system

#13

Post by jabbernotty » Thu, May 23, 2013, 1:47 PM UTC

Again, I can't reach the article. I end up at "China manufacturing shrinks in May, leaving policymakers with few good options", just as happened with the previous qz link

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5756176

Re: Students are the victims and culprits of India’s broken higher education system

#14

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, May 23, 2013, 2:06 PM UTC

Ugh. Quartz. Readability makes this much more tolerable:

http://www.readability.com/articles/ppb4ycws

Re: Students are the victims and culprits of India’s broken higher education system

#15

Post by lake99 » Thu, May 23, 2013, 2:10 PM UTC

jbattle wrote: post #11

lake99 wrote: post #7

I agree that nationalism is ruining India. But, this article paints quite a one-sided picture. You can see that in this sentence: "Indian students are taking their useless Indian liberal arts degrees and going abroad to get real ones that signify a real education". See? That's just it! Most people who do well in high-school get pushed into technical fields. My cousins are mostly engineers or doctors, and a few are la…

I'm a little confused - you are saying the article is overstating things, but that degrees in science, engineering, academia, and possibly medicine are "mostly useless"?

I'll clarify.

I'll make no comments about medicine - I know nothing about education in this field.

The bachelors programs in the IITs are great, by global standards. IISc does some cool work too. Leaving those aside, a BS in engineering (called BE or BTech here) is not bad. We have some outdated courses, we don't have the freedom to choose courses, etc. But for most of our courses, we use the same textbooks as Americans, Brits, Australians, etc. I suppose we have similar kinds of lab sessions too.

Academia (includes bacherlors, masters, PhD, post-doc, professorship, research papers, conferences, journals, funding, etc.) in India is generally terrible. ME/MTech in India is mostly useless. BE/BTech in India is not bad.

Re: Students are the victims and culprits of India’s broken higher education system

#16

Post by tokenadult » Thu, May 23, 2013, 2:15 PM UTC

k4rtik wrote: post #3

This was published weeks back in The Hindu: http://www.thehindu.com/features/education/college-and-unive...

We should read the original source and not be stuck with the weird page styling of Quartz then. The HN guidelines discourage posting anything but the original source, so that's all the more reason to do so.

Re: Students are the victims and culprits of India’s broken higher education system

#17

Post by squozzer » Thu, May 23, 2013, 2:24 PM UTC

All I can say is "good luck, you'll need it." I don't think India has a unique problem with its' higher ed system.

Consider that the modern university is based on ideas developed in the late Middle Ages, throw in a healthy dash of politics (both formal and informal), and the gatekeeper factor, why would any university feel the need to change?

Do today's kids have the gumption to boycott the system? We didn't - instead we adapted, just like the kids at St. Stephen's.

To be fair to Indians, we Americans probably get even more agitated at criticism from outside (or inside.)

Re: Students are the victims and culprits of India’s broken higher education system

#18

Post by jseliger » Thu, May 23, 2013, 2:32 PM UTC

squozzer wrote: post #17

All I can say is "good luck, you'll need it." I don't think India has a unique problem with its' higher ed system. Consider that the modern university is based on ideas developed in the late Middle Ages, throw in a healthy dash of politics (both formal and informal), and the gatekeeper factor, why would any university feel the need to change? Do today's kids have the gumption to boycott the system? We didn't - instea…

Consider that the modern university is based on ideas developed in the late Middle Ages, throw in a healthy dash of politics (both formal and informal), and the gatekeeper factor, why would any university feel the need to change?

To be fair, the idea of the university got started in the Middle Ages but they have changed quite a bit since; if you're interested in the subject, take a look at the latest edition of Clark Kerr's book The Uses of the University, which traces changes in American universities from the post-War period to the present. Louis Menand's The Marketplace of Ideas is also very good.

(Disclaimer: I'm writing my dissertation on academic novels.)

Re: Students are the victims and culprits of India’s broken higher education system

#19

Post by manish_gill » Thu, May 23, 2013, 2:35 PM UTC

lake99 wrote: post #15

jbattle wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little confused - you are saying the article is overstating things, but that degrees in science, engineering, academia, and possibly medicine are "mostly useless"?

I'll clarify. I'll make no comments about medicine - I know nothing about education in this field. The bachelors programs in the IITs are great, by global standards. IISc does some cool work too. Leaving those aside, a BS in engineering (called BE or BTech here) is not bad. We have some outdated courses, we don't have the freedom to choose courses, etc. But for most of our courses, we use the same textbooks as Americ…

> I suppose we have similar kinds of lab sessions too.

No! Not by far. The "lab sessions" in a typical non-IIT Indian engineering institutes are a joke. Ever heard of the Borland Turbo C compiler? Yeah, that's still used to teach students C/C++, with outdated (and non-standard) code.

I've had similarly horrible experience in any and all labs, be it circuits and systems, networking, or whatever else you might think of.

Thank god for the Internet, otherwise I would have never have known better.

Re: Students are the victims and culprits of India’s broken higher education system

#20

Post by k4rtik » Thu, May 23, 2013, 2:37 PM UTC

lake99 wrote: post #15

jbattle wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little confused - you are saying the article is overstating things, but that degrees in science, engineering, academia, and possibly medicine are "mostly useless"?

I'll clarify. I'll make no comments about medicine - I know nothing about education in this field. The bachelors programs in the IITs are great, by global standards. IISc does some cool work too. Leaving those aside, a BS in engineering (called BE or BTech here) is not bad. We have some outdated courses, we don't have the freedom to choose courses, etc. But for most of our courses, we use the same textbooks as Americ…

> We have some outdated courses, we don't have the freedom to choose courses, etc.

I disagree. I have just finished (few weeks back) my BTech from an NIT and can at least vouch for my CS education and those from some other respectable NITs. We had a great amount of freedom in choosing the courses and had some of the best faculty to learn from.

Generalizing the education in India to this extent certainly paints a wrong picture. I agree that there are only a few institutes which are good, but they are surely not limited to just IITs and IISc.