For the last couple of days, I am finding that there are a lot of comments in the media including social media about Mrs. Smriti Irani, new Union HRD Minister about her qualifications vis-a-vis the position she has been given in the Union Cabinet. Though I am a proud alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad, based on my extensive experience and interactions with people in India and abroad, I would like to say that there is no correlation between qualification and competence. Qualification is neither necessary nor sufficient for competence. Qualification may possibly help in competence, but only if the concerned person has the right aptitude and attitude. Without taking any names, we all know the extensive sabotage and subversion done to the education in India during the last many years, despite the successive Union HRD Ministers having been highly qualified. Even the governance of our nation suffered significantly despite the Prime Minister having been the most qualified in its history. All the regulatory agencies like AICTE, NCTE, MCI, etc. were made rent-seeking bodies which were least bothered about the merit of the institutions or the development of our nation. Ishwar Dayal Committee, U. R. Rao Committee and various surveys done by business magazines have been repeatedly saying that overwhelming 85% of AICTE approved institutions were sub-standard and almost 85% of the pass outs from AICTE approved institutions were not employable. I have had six meetings with AICTE team members including two with its Chairman during the last few months but not even in one meeting they wanted to talk about the merit of institutions. No one knows where thousands of crores of rupees collected over the years in the name of education cess were spent. Right to Education has become a massive scam. I can go on and on. The less said the better! Let us all sincerely pray and wish that Mrs. Smriti Irani, new Union HRD Minister, provides the much needed paradigm shift to overhaul the education, since it is the foundation of any society and the nation. If India is to really become a developed country then we have no choice but to bring education out of the mess it got into over the last many years, specially the last decade.
Posted on: Wed, 28 May 2014 03:50:02 +0000
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