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The Rediff Interview/ P T Manoharan

'Even our IITs and IIMs are only comparable with the second grade institutions of the US'

What about the students? Do you see mediocrity there also?

The state universities have an obligation to the society in the sense that you have to provide seats on the basis of caste lines. What they call the quota system. I do understand, as this is a social obligation. But under the new and correct system of education, if the students are good, they will survive. If they are not good, they will not survive. The education system will take care of it. There is no doubt about the fact that we have to meet a social obligation.

Are you for reservation in higher education?

You are on a very touchy field. As far as students are concerned, I don't think there is anything wrong in reservation. But it should be according to the Supreme Court directive. The Supreme Court says 50 per cent of the seats should be reserved and the other 50 per cent should be open to meritorious students. We should have it for some more time so that we can bring them to a higher level. But with respect to the selection of teachers, I think we have to give a serious thought to it. My personal experience shows that it is possible to select the best teachers from all communities.

You talked about the lack of infrastructure in colleges and universities. Is that not because education is subsidised here in India? Should we not charge more, at least for higher education, from those who can afford?

Yes, those who can afford should be charged. It should only be subsidised for the poor.

Irrespective of the caste or religion they belong to?

Yes, that is my feeling. After all, discrimination began based on economy. Unfortunately, nobody looks at it from the economic point of view. The truth is that it is the economically deprived class that becomes the socially backward class.

With this in mind, let me say higher education cannot be completely subsidised because it is a very expensive affair. We need money to make it better. Before I resigned as the vice chancellor, I implemented one programme with this in mind. I chose 15 different areas for which more students wanted to get in. And I decided to have 13 per cent additional seats in those departments, which I called 'non subsidy seats'. I didn't want to call it self-financing seats. My aim was to make at least Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million) for the university from these 15 courses. Unfortunately, my way of looking at things did not go through. For this, the government itself has directed certain categories of payment. Even with this, the university may get Rs 50-60 lakhs (Rs 5-6 million). My idea was, half of the 50 lakhs ( Rs 5 million) would go straight away to those departments for improving infrastructure. The remaining half would go to the corpus because universities are in a need to generate a corpus. Unfortunately, in a place where there should be computers, there are no computers.

Compared to other countries, are our educational institutions lagging behind a lot?

Very much. There is a vast difference. I would compare even our IITs and IIMs only with the second grade institutions of the US. They are not like the Harvard, Columbia, Yale, or the Oxford or Cambridge universities. The difference comes due to two factors. We are much better with respect to students. With respect to the faculty, we are not that good. With respect to infrastructure, we are not like the best American universities. If you do not have good infrastructure, you can't have good research. Without good research, you can't motivate the students to the highest level. Fortunately, the IIT system will survive because we take all the good students there while the universities get only the leftovers.

These days, politicians are clamouring for a change in the medium of instruction from English to the local language. Not only in schools but in colleges too. What is your opinion?

There are two sides to the coin. Certain subjects can be learnt in any language. The only problem is, you need adequate amount of books in that particular language on a particular subject. It can be created in certain subjects, mostly humanities.

It has to be created first.

Yes, it has to be created first. The problem is, good men are not involved in translation. They are more interested in creative work. So, they are not in a position to write first class books in regional languages. Hence the regional language textbooks are not of high quality. The best answer to the question is, our students should be trained not only in regional languages but also in English or in any one of the European languages where there is abundance of knowledge available. To reach them, they should know English.

Another problem regarding subjects like science, technology and medicine is, it is a fast changing world and I am afraid, we can't do without English. By the time you try to translate a book, the book becomes outdated. Now English has become the international medium for all purposes including instruction at the college level. This is my personal opinion. There may be many people to criticise me. But I am talking about producing high calibre people. If you want low calibre people, what you follow now is fine.

What in your opinion is the future of the Indian education system? Where do you see it in the next century?

I have serious reservations. We don't have adequate money. Unless the Indian economy considerably improves, the government will not be able to generate money for education. Even if we generate money, they will give it mainly for the primary and the secondary education as a part of the social commitment, which is quite logical. But if we want to be a successful nation, special education or the university education should know how to generate its own resources. The IITs are successful in this regard and the universities are the least successful. The problem is going to be more complicated with the population still increasing. Looking at the total scenario, I think it is grim. So, at this moment, I am a highly pessimistic person.

When will the pessimist in you become an optimist?

Optimism will come if a large number of dedicated trusts enter the field, like the Harvard University, which is a trust. A vice chancellor should be given adequate power and the governing council should have only men of eminence. If you follow these two there is a possibility that some universities may fare well. Every university should be unique on its own, as you cannot have a combined policy for all the universities. Not all fingers are the same. You can't expect all first universities to be first class. But I can say one thing, only the best will survive and the rest will go to hell.

Yes, you can also improve the education system through a novel method, which the Americans are very seriously working on now. There is a possibility in dividing the entire university system into two types: one for subjects which require experiments, that is, science, and two, for subjects which do not require experiments, that is, humanities.

All the subjects under humanities can come under the Net University. The Net University can generate lessons through multimedia and they can make it interesting through the lectures of high level experts. And the examination can be conducted over the 'Net. Here, you get lessons from the experts only. All the useless teachers will be wiped out. The problem here is, there is no inter-person relationship. These are some of the losses. But the gain is, you can listen to somebody like Rajah Chelliah talking to you on economics. If we were to believe the experts, India may become a world leader in communication technology in the next century and if that happens, the Net University will be a reality here too. So, only information technology can totally change the ambience of our education system. And that is the only hope for higher education. Otherwise, the scenario is not very pleasant to look at.

Photographs: Sanjay Ghosh

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