It is widely criticized that the primary education in India lacks quality. The government of India has been trying to improve the quality of primary education by introducing changes in our education system. When ever new reforms are introduced it is a habit among us Indians to analyze the shortcomings critically. We also make claims on triggering the change but end up with doing nothing in the introduction part.

In addition to this whenever someone comes up with constructive criticism and better solutions, we often don’t pay attention to them. This has been happening for long in India and we Indians lack openness to accept such criticisms. Another trend is that we often criticize new initiatives in the education which is brought by Indian entrepreneurs. It is as if the responsibility lies with only few including the government to bring about reforms in the education sector.

Narayana Murthy on the quality of IIT students

Two of the issues that made the news headlines are good examples of our resistance to accept constructive criticisms and to accept change, even if it is a small initiative. One issue is related to the comments made by Narayana Murthy on the deteriorating quality of the IIT students. The students who are admitted to IIT s lack quality in terms of subject knowledge and this has led to declining quality of students graduating out of IITs. The reason behind this is the dependency of students on coaching centers to secure the top position in the entrance examination results. Once this comment was made by Narayana Murthy, former students of IIT s and IIT professors came out with articles that justify the quality of IIT s and that they still attract the best students.

What Narayana Murthy was trying to make out was that both students and their parents were paying attention on preparing for the IIT entrance exam, with out paying attention to the 12th standard education. The existence of such entrance examination coaching centers may be justified by the kind of competition that students face in getting admission for very few colleges. But the fact is that, by giving attention to securing top positions in the entrance examination, students often fail to acquire fundamental knowledge of the core subjects in their 12th standard. This is in fact agreed by many of the IIT professors, but in private. According to them the entrance exam coaching centers train students to face the entrance exam so that they can secure top rank. What they fail is, to give proper understanding of the fundamentals.

In order to test the understanding of the students in their 12th standard subjects, the entrance exam process should be restructured. In India not every student in the 12th standard prepare for the IIT entrance exam and not every student in the 12th want to be an engineer. We have many students who are really intelligent, but pursue other courses than engineering. Such students want quality education at the higher secondary level in order to pursue their career. So in order to provide quality education at the higher secondary level, the CBSE and the state education boards should focus on improving learning in class rooms. With the help of such methods students will start focusing on what is taught in class and thus will have a better knowledge of core subjects in their 12th standard rather than just preparing for IIT entrance exam.

What Narayana Murthy was worried about is the lack of quality education at the higher secondary level. He wants quality education at the higher secondary level for students other than those who secure admission at IIT s.

The introduction of Aakash Tablet in India

Recently the HRD minister Mr. Kapil Sibal has unveiled the world’s cheapest tablet. It is named Aakash, meaning ‘sky’ in hindi. What the government plans to do is to distribute thousands of tablets to students at a subsidized rate of $35. The actual price of Aakash is $60. The intention behind this is to give students access to internet and technology so that the process of teaching and learning can be enhanced. Aakash is a ubislate7 developed by Data Wind. The Aakash comes with a 7 inch 800 X 400 touch screen keypad. It has a 366 Mhz Connexant CPU with 256 MB RAM and 2 GB storage space which can be extended with Micro SD memory card.

A fully charges Aakash will work up to 3 hours and for much lesser duration during HD video play back. The user can get connected to the internet using Wi-Fi and also by using GPRS modem in rural areas where Wi-Fi is not common. This initiative too came under criticism from many parts about the success of the device. It is said that the device is of poor quality and even a cell phone can be used for the same purpose. There were also statements concerned about the availability of electricity in rural areas and also about the lack of content on the internet. The fact is that developing content for academic purpose in the Indian context is one thing that our academicians should take care of and it is of course a challenging task for them.

The content required by the Indian students is entirely different from that required by the students in the developed countries. More over in India teachers use different languages in classes based on the states they belong to and also use different methods and styles. So it is up to the teachers to create adequate contents as required by the students in India. It is found that the performance of the tablet is satisfactory in terms of technology. About the availability of electricity, charging stations can be provided at schools and other public places, where mobile charging stations are already in existence.

So what we should realize is that, it is the responsibility of the government to bring about reforms in the education sector that will add value to the education system in India. But other stake holders such as students, teachers, parents and the society at large has a major role in making the education system in India better by making it a center for creation of some high quality students.