Indian education system creates no distinction between mediocrity and excellence, institutes need autonomy: Former DU VC

NOIDA: Calling for more autonomy for education institutions especially those imparting higher education, former DU Vice Chancellor and noted writer VR Mehta said on Wednesday that the kind of education that needs to be imparted should not be decided in ministries but by the teachers and every institution should have its own individual identity.

Quoting, late former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee,he called for "de-politicisation, de- bureaucratisation and de-centralisation" of the educational institutes.

He also commented that there was no distinction between "mediocrity and excellence" in the Indian education system.

Addressing teachers and students at the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), Mehta said that autonomy was very important for development of education.

"During an annual function of Hindu College during my tenure as vice chancellor, former PM Vajpayee said that if an educational institute was to move forward, it had to be de-politicised, de-centralised and de-bureaucratised. These three things are very important. With de-politicisation, it means that the centre has to be the teacher. With de-bureaucratisation, it means that the kind of education to be imparted should not be decided in ministries but by the teachers while de-centralisation means that every institution should have its own individual identity," he said at the event presided over by Minister of state for communications and Railways Manoj Sinha.

Calling for autonomy to the educational institutions, he said that all the major educational institutions in the west rose in opposition to the state, not with the state.

"Look at all the major institutions in the West, they rose in opposition to the state, not with the state because they started questioning the system. And till the time, this tendency to question continues to exist, the society will survive. And the day it stops, the society will start disintegrating," he said.

The best universities in the west have their own identity, he said.

Stating that the role or responsibility of state in education was visible in the form of "state control" post-independence, he said that it was necessary for educational institutions to start questioning the state in order to rise.

He further said that the there was a lack of good schools and teachers across the country and questioned the role of the teachers in North India.

"I remember that when we were taking interviews for admission of children in Chennai (for a charitable organisation), most children said that they were informed about the organisation by their teachers, mothers, etc. It was heartening to see that the ladies were playing a big role in provision of education in the South. While in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, we had 4000-5000 applications for admission, in Bihar and UP, the number was only 200-400 applications. The question is whether the teachers in the north were not playing their role vis-à-vis those in the south," he said.

Questioning the lack of analytic skills among the students, he said that Indian educational institutes needed to develop the skills required to innovate, experiment and to create something new.

"Look at the number of students moving out for studies. I have seen that most of the students in Delhi who can afford are going abroad for studies. And when he goes abroad, he either flourishes or does not. Because, we have created a system, where there is no distinction between mediocrity and excellence. If you have a separate identity, you can't retain it," he said.