Some 10 years back I got an opportunity to conduct a series of workshops on Leadership, in one of the Management institutions owned by the Govt. I was surprised to learn from the students that there were no LCD projectors in the class rooms and it had to be procured daily from the college store and after the class was over, it had to be deposited back. Now as this was quite harassing, as the store man was often missing from his chair, so the Faculty preferred to avoid using the Projector.

After the workshop, I therefore thought of apprising the Director of the institute about the students’ needs . Hearing my suggestion the Director, smiled sarcastically and said “Col sahib, I think the students did not tell you what they would do with the equipment if it is permanently fitted in the class room.’ So, he took me to one of the class rooms. It was a disgusting sight ; the fans were bent in the shape of a lotus flower, the desks were broken and the switch boards were missing, to avoid any untoward incident caused by the exposed electric wires, instead of the switch boards a metal sheet was welded to the wall.

“All that you see here has been done by these students, so let, The LCD Projectors remain in the store, Col sahib…any faculty who is interested to use it can collect it and return it after the class is over.” Director commented. I then innocently asked him, “why don’t you take action against the indisciplined students.” “No one complains and there are never any witnesses.” He quipped. “ and if at all I take any action, there will be total chaos in the College… Col sahib, please do not underestimate these fellows, the student unions are politicized outfits and are full of hooligans, they are like a hornets’ nest, if you touch them, they will sting you hard and create such problems for us all, that you and me can’t even think of, the media and the politicians will jump in and in the bargain I and my faculty will get sorted out.”

The Director folding his hands pleaded “Colonel sahib, I have finished 3 years here, and likely to retire soon, I do not want any controversy, let things run the way they are. If these fellows want to study, they will come, if not let them not. You conduct your workshops and forget about improving anything here.”

Having experienced the plight of the faculty in other institutions as well, I was not a bit surprised when recently the cabinet minister was heckled by the students of Jadavpur university and the Governor had to rush in to save him, when the students of Banaras Hindu University created ruckus in the premises and the JNU students often steal the headlines.

The main stream political parties treat the student unions as their outposts and the deeper one gets to probe the reasons of this strange behavior of students who instead of focusing on education and building their careers, are wasting their time on irrelevant aspects, one finds there are numerous stake holders who have no desire to improve things ; The political parties, the faculty, the students, every one seems to be enjoying fishing in this swamp.

And therefore, no wonder we do not have any educational institution ranked amongst the top 200 in the world. And therefore no wonder inspite having the largest pool of science graduates we hardly do any research work. An old CII(Confederation of Indian Industry) report said – Barely 15% students coming out of Indian Institutions are Employable and out of those 85% unfit for employment, two thirds are not even trainable.” So, it is not surprising that for a position of a Forest guard, a Peon in a Government office you find thousands of Phds, Doctors, Engineers applying.

No Government can create jobs for unskilled students.

Even our IITs are not amongst the top 200 and there is hardly any research work going on. A large number of students joining IITs study at Coaching institutions and join proxy schools and have not attended practical sessions in the school. If they have not done Physics and Chemistry practicals, what kind of technocrats are we producing.

There are 23X IITs in the country and together they filed barely 400 patent applications, Out of some 45000 applications received in 2016-17, merely 23 % are from Indian organizations, rest by foreign organizations operating in India. Indian institute of Science applied for 54, Amity- 106 and NITs are not figuring anywhere. In the year 2016-17, in the field of electronics a total of 19640 applications were filed and 2860 patents were granted, in the field of Mech engineering there were 14500 applications filed and 2546 granted, in chemistry and allied subjects out of 9510 applications 3883 patents were granted and in Bio technology and allied subjects out of 1754 applications received 558 patents were granted.

The total number of patents granted during the last five years i.e. from 2012-2013 to 2016-2017 will surprise us further. Top 5 Indian Patentees have been ; COUNCIL OF SCIENTIFIC & INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH, DEFENCE RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT ORGANISATION , SAMSUNG R& D INSTITUTE, PRIVATE LIMITED INDIA, HINDUSTAN UNILEVER LIMITED and Ranked at number Five are our prestigious IITs. In none of these top four organizations, one would find very many IITians working. When one compares this performance with China, the picture is grim because China in last one decade has progressed leaps and bounds. Today it has almost Four Institutions ranked amongst the Top 100 in the world, two of them are in Top 25.

If over 600,000 Patent applications were filed in the US and more than twice that number in China in 2017, then 46,600 applications by India tells us the whole story and it becomes more grim and disappointing when patent grants came to just over 12,000 in a country of 1.37 billion people.

Innovation is a primary source of national power. Our ability to develop new products and methods of production will enable us to produce the goods desired by others. In turn, this will create wealth, lead to technological advancement, and foster further innovation. But that can only happen when our educational institutions are geared up for that and produce enough skilled candidates who can bring about innovation.

Our IITs( where education is higly subsidized) produce Engineers who do not wish to work on Shop floor, who do not wish to get involved in hard core engineering and any serious research work. Most of them are interested in is ; CTC. Today, our definition of success has sadly become – CTC .

In view of the above, I do not think it is right to single out any Educational institution; we need to accept that all our educational institutions are rotten. The only difference is some are more and some are less. If IITs have produced some

CEOs than JNU also has produced some great scholars who have even won Nobel award.

Moreover, one cannot and rather should not compare the Technology Institutes with Institutes teaching Humanities. Not that the engineer should not be creative but a student studying Political science, sociology, economics has to be more engaged with the society. Thence, the institution needs to grant more freedom to the students to interact with the events taking place in the socio- politico arena.

We therefore need to look at the entire education system in a holistic manner and take measures to deal with this knotty issue. India cannot grow on this wafer thin skilled population and this kind of poor performance in the field of innovation.

The first step, in my opinion, should be to ban Student Unions for next ten years, as it has become a sort of a playground for the main stream Political parties and the students are not realizing that it is causing more harm to them rather accruing any benefit. Moreover, besides the students even the faculty is politically motivated.

Once the institutions are set on a desired course, we can switch over to the old system.