Indian education system crying for reforms

Filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani's 3 Idiots is a massive hit. The film lampoons India's higher education system, particularly engineering colleges. The film depicts teachers as cruel, parents who pressurise children and students as victims of a terrifying system.

CNN-IBN show Face The Nation debated: Is 3 Idiots an accurate depiction of Indian higher education?

On the panel of experts to debate the issue were IIT alumnus and author of Five Point Someone Chetan Bhagat, filmmaker Mahesh Manjrekar whose forthcoming Marathi film Shikshanachya Aaicha Gho is on the pressures of the education system, director of Karadi Tales Pvt Ltd & IIT Alumnus Narayan Parasuram and Managing Director of Copper Beech Shashank Vira.

Education system in India

Narayan Parasuram believes that 3 Idiots is a dangerously juvenile film.

"The first thing I did after walking out of the theatre was call my guide in IIT and tell him that am sorry that such a film has been made. I have a degree in metallurgical engineering but I am a musician today. What upsets me most is that the film is extremely irreverent. So it is a little dangerous if you take this film seriously," he said.

There are many engineers from IITs who are not the typical Lamborghini chasers. So the experts believed that there must be something right that the institute is doing.

"It is not fair to say that the IITs are just producing students who get by with rote learning. The problem stems from the time before one gets into IITs. The lakhs and lakhs of learning institutes and the pressure along with it that creates the problem. You have great teachers and very artistic people in IITs. There are all kinds of interesting people who are not just engineers," Shashank Vira said.

But why is the higher education system in India so tiring? Why is it always associated with marks and rote learning?

To which Vira explained, "There are nearly 9 lakh students every year who sit for the exam and only 3,000 get in. So the pressure comes from the numbers and not the course content or the method of teaching."

Learn or unlearn?

Chetan Bhagat said that films are an exaggeration and so one tends to have a professor who can be slammed. "But the film does make a point and that is what clicks with people."

Taking the debate to the controversy over giving credit to the author, he said, "The 3 Idiots credit controversy from my side is over. I had some genuine points and that has led to a lot of debate on copyright policies. In a contract say for example you can buy a painting but you cannot say that you painted it. That is basic tenets of copyright issues. And this is what I have written on my blog. I have nothing against team 3 Idiots or any of its makers. I also apologise to their families if any distress was caused. My fans should not turn against Aamir Khan because of me since I continue to love and respect the actor."

Filmmaker Mahesh Manjrekar is also making a film on the education system in India but the movie reportedly uses violent language and anger against the system.

Throwing more light on his movie's theme, Manjrekar said, "In a country where more than 5,000 students are committing suicide in a year then Shikshanachya Aaicha Gho is quite a mild terminology. I am livid with the kind of pressures that children live with nowadays. They are ranked according to their performance and this leads to complexes at an early age. What the students are facing today is simply atrocious."

But is this anger necessary to force a change in the system?

"Anger is a sense of deprivation that they have had in their own education," Parasuram said.

"In one swoop if we say that the system is bad then I feel sorry for these people who are making such films. An aberration cannot become a generalisation. How fair is that? We are all beneficiaries of this education system and then we deride it. It's simply being ungrateful," he added.

It is one thing to want reform in the system and it is another thing to say that since the standards are low so one should not study.

But Manjrekar argued that since nobody had seen my film so they should not be judgmental about it. "Parasuram spoke without seeing my film. My film is not against education but it is against the system. It is still caught in the ‘50s and ‘60s. I want to tell Mr Parasuram that I was not deprived but when I see kids today under pressure then I feel like asking for a change. My film does not abuse teachers or education, it just makes a strong comment on a system that refuses to change," he said.

Taking the example of cricketer Sachin Tendulkar's success, Manjrekar explained that if his father had said that he just wanted his son to get a degree then Sachin would not have been who he is today.

To which Parasuram said, "Tendulkar's father taught reverence towards education."

Taking a more balanced stand on the issue, Vira said, "There is a lot in the education system which is good and we need to hold on to that. If you look at why do people go for higher education then some go for learning, some for the rubber stamp and some go to find friends or because their parents wanted to see their children going to certain schools. Reverence for learning is something which is within each person. So everyone who is in an institute of higher learning is not there to learn. And until we recognise that reality we will be trying to reform something that we don't even know."

Concluding the debate, Bhagat said, "Putting the debate in a nutshell I think we don't encourage innovation."

Final results of the SMS/web poll:

73 per cent – Yes

27 per cent – No

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