An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.’ But looking at the condition of education in India in terms of international standards, one gets a feeling that what’s happening here is mere commitment to memory and what we know. ‘You slog the books and you hog the marks’ is the philosophy that has successfully conquered the minds of Indian students and parents who are in pins or needles when it comes to their son’s/daughter’s golden future as they call it.If we go by the belief that by knowing where India’s best educational institutions stand at an international level, we can measure our standard, than an absolute lightning bolt awaits you.
 
The Indian Institute of Technology, the most reputed Engineering Institute in India, has served as a dream place for many young Indian brilliant minds. Unfortunately this Institute stands 218th in the list of world’s best Institutes, 36th in Asia and 79th among the Engineering and IT Colleges in the world. According to usnews.com, it has an academic reputation score of 54.5, employer reputation score of 59.4, Citations per Faculty score of 45.2 and an overall score of 45.1. Quite pathetic, isn’t it?
 
In India, for a student to get into any of these Prestigious Institutes, he/she has to be studious throughout his high school life. Moreover, The pressure sometimes leads to people getting depressed and extremely frustrated which can be dangerous at times. The research activities taking place here are abysmal when compared to the universities in the United States of America and the United Kingdom. The job opportunities for a student graduated at MIT, Caltech, Berkley etc. is more in comparison to an IIT graduate but still, these universities are still considered poorer than the ‘INDIAN’ Universities. Some call it typical Indian mentality, but I would be a little more kind to call it ‘Love for the Country’. The IIT, for example has an acceptance rate of 2%, often leaving about half of the other 98% of people depressed. Harvard University, standing 2nd in the world with an overall score of 99.3, accepts 7.2% of its applicants. So, are the best brains of our Country going to the wrong place? The answer is an uncertain ‘YES’
 
What we need to do is quite clear and understandable. Right from a child’s high school, one needs to be trained to apply rather than to simply mug. We need to prepare our students to be competent enough to fight the very competitive globe. We have the brains and we certainly do have the money required, what we lack though is the will to improve our Education System. This lack of will may be of the Government or the People, but the lacking is very much there. The IITs too have been an incredible contribution to India’s education system, but it can certainly do more. After all, we need to prepare better citizens with better brains rather than transforming their genius heads to machines!
 
Courtesy: Revanth Vishnu