An addendum to the previous post on “Education and Corruption.” Here’s a story that I recently heard which illustrates the engineering of scarcity in education and the resultant bribes and low quality. No names are mentioned because the people involved are powerful people in the government.

The Indian education sector is in distress. How does one explain the lack of outrage among the population at something which affects them so forcefully? Could it be because they are not aware of how dysfunctional the system is? That must at least partly explain the apathy. Perhaps they know but accept it with the fatalistic resignation of the type that accepts corruption among public officials? Perhaps they mistakenly consider pervasive corruption as normal. But how can they not see that government control of education, the rampant corruption, and the …

There are some topics that make me see red. In that state, I cannot even think rationally, leave alone write coherently. I am so angry that this is not going to read well for sure. But this has to be said. Those who are ultimately responsible for the violence against the Indian students in Australia should not be lynched. Lynching would be too good for them. I am not talking about the red-necks and skinheads (or whatever their Australian equivalents are) who attack foreign students. I am talking of the …

The greatest scandal and the greatest failure of the Indian governments (all of them, and practically all of them have been Congress) has been in education. A great economy and a great education system go hand in hand — though it almost always starts with the education system supplying the fuel that powers the engine of growth and development. Any dispassionate observer of the Indian education system (and I am one of many) cannot but conclude that it is one of the most distressed. It has never been very good …

One of the persistent themes of this blog is the dismal failure of the education system. There is a direct relationship between the excellence of the educational system — human skills — and the broad performance of the economy. So even without knowing much about an economy, if you find the economy in dire straits, you can as a reasonable hypothesis maintain that the educational system may be dysfunctional.

Consider this scenario. Someone you know imprisons his grown up children and does not allow them to go out and do jobs that they are fully capable of doing. He also locks up his productive assets and prevents his children from using them. Then he goes around begging his neighbors for help with feeding his family as he does not have any income. The words that spring to mind upon considering this man’s behavior are words like contemptible, immoral, stupid, pathetic, pitiable, and sad.

Ramesh Menon’s article “India’s Talent Crunch” in DNA makes shocking reading but is news only if one has not been in touch with the reality of the desperate situation that employers face in India in their search for employable people.

That’s what a report in the Hindustan Times claims: US $13 billion each year. Figures such as these are unbelievable but I suppose someone must have done the numbers. In any case, I had estimated that number to be around $10 billion a few years ago.
Let’s pause for a moment and figure. $13 billion every year. Or in the last 10 years, about $100 billion. Imagine what you could buy for that money. How about 100 colleges with first class infrastructure with housing, classrooms, labs? Each year India could …

The headline in the NY Times article simply says, “INDIA’S GREAT PROBLEM: Nobody Knows How to Educate Her 300,000,000 People.” It begins
For many years past, those who have known India best have recognized that one of her greatest, if not her greatest, problem was that of education.

We find ourselves in the midst of a transition, from the industrial-value-added analog world to the information-value-added digital world of the future. The relatively static world of the past is giving way to a dynamic world that defies comprehension and easy descriptions. The institutions that worked in the past are losing their relevance in an accelerating and rapidly changing world economy – one that is getting more interdependent and interrelated. This change is more radical than that which accompanied the transition from a primarily agricultural to an industrial economy.

I need help with replying to this email which has been sitting in my inbox for a while. Every time I open it with intentions of replying, words fail me. Any suggestions from the gallery on what the appropriate response should be?
Atanu:
I read your article on name change and I found it fascinating. Do you have a numerologist you could recommend? I’ve just written my first novel and I need to choose between my name and married name. Thanks so much.
All the best,
Novel Writer
Thank you kindly for any …