In today’s
India, not a day goes by without a comment on NEET (the entrance exam for medical courses) or any such entrance exam. If
some student meets with an unfortunate end citing pressures, blame it on the
entrance exam. Going by that logic, we should scrap all exams! Education belongs to the centre – state area
and is used or misused by both. Some states think their board education system
is the best and they have the right to decide how they would admit their
students. Other states follow an entrance examination. In a big country like
ours and given our landscape and rural population, it is only right that all
these factors are considered.
The problem
arises when these factors are used to label or certify a person for his/her
skills. Our focus should be on helping less fortunate amongst us and bringing
them up to a nationally or globally recognizable standard. The second challenge
is that we have guaranteed the right for any Indian citizen to live anywhere in
the country. When a qualified person moves from one domicile to another, he or
she carries the qualifications, skills and capabilities too. These should be
transferable across India whether they refer to plumbing or medicine or
engineering.
The first
step is to define the associated capabilities/skills both technical and
non-technical clearly.
This is not dissimilar to the learning outcomes. By the
word “doctor”, we assume the person has certain capabilities. These do not
arise because the person has passed 50 courses in medicine related subjects or
has studied from a top medical college. It comes with a certain level of
mastery of specific subject areas and/or associated experience. These areas can
be studied as two subjects in certain universities or 4 subjects. That doesn’t
matter. By listing all the capabilities, we have many advantages. The subject
areas can be modified/updated depending on the way the profession evolves. The
people, pursuing this profession, have clear ideas on the outcome. It also
brings in consistent nomenclature to be used throughout the country. We have
colleges, in India, that award “Metallurgical engineering”; “Metallurgical
engineering and material science”; “Material science and metallurgical
engineering”. No one knows how the capabilities of each differ. This is,
certainly, not a diversity to be celebrated!
Once we do
this, what is next? How do we screen the candidates for undergoing a course
that will help them to acquire the said capabilities? Who gets to decide a
4-year course of university is better suited to this than the 5-year course of
another university? We don’t have
standards for comparing universities by each degree or course rigorously. Where
do the different state boards of education stand as compared to CBSE? To top it
further, can a 100% marks secured in Mathematics of TN state board be
considered equivalent to a 100% in West Bengal board? No, we will need far more
mechanisms to do that.
We should
aspire to set up validation mechanisms that compare different boards, courses
and educational institutes against certain specific outcomes based on
transparent parameters. The government owes this to the entire student
community. The NIRF ranking is a good start. Consistent and verifiable display
of information from each university is to be made mandatory. This is akin to display
of credentials of every contestant in an election thanks to the electoral
reforms. Today, if we look at the newspaper, the only parameter advertised by
the institutes is the placement record. The student community knows not whether
these claims are true. Every school boasts of its infrastructure and faculty.
Look at the plight of students. How will they gather right information and make
decisions? This is a subject that can be discussed on its own merits. But, right
now, instead of getting into such level of details, why don’t we start with
validating the quality at the exit gate? An example is a professional
qualification like CA or CWA. They define the body of knowledge, type of exams
to be written, quantum of practice or experience before someone can be said to
have acquired this qualification. A doctor has multiple skills/capabilities to
achieve before getting the official qualification and associated perks. That
testing of the skill can come in the form of exams, interview, internship,
practice at government hospitals etc. No matter which universities they study,
they should sit for this prescribed procedure for acquiring qualification. The
best thing is that these validation mechanisms are and should be only based on
merit and be fool proof to tamper. Another useful option that can be evaluated
is whether to make a minimum period of service in a rural area mandatory as
part of the validation or immediately post-validation. This, if conceived and
implemented well, will be equivalent to “Matching” that happens in the US and
remove the disparities amongst the aspiring students when applying for post
graduate courses.
In India, we
have reservations in place to help disadvantaged people. It is very likely that
these will be perpetual for no party dares to tweak it. Some states have high
level and some others have medium level. Whatever they are, the respective
state governments are free to decide on their applicability and choosing of
students for various courses in their state. But, this will not come in when
sitting for validation procedure. There is no reservation or nor a rank list.
It is simply a formal and complete evaluation of the person as per the
definition for acquiring the title or capability. A doctor with a 90% marks in his final exams
and another one with 75% marks, can practise medicine so long as they have
successfully cleared the validation procedure. Imagine next time you visit a
doctor, you don’t need to dissect his pedigree before deciding to trust
yourself with him or her. Or we won’t have the problem of producing engineers
who don’t know how to operate a machine or handle important tool sets!
Such a
hands-off approach on the study and admission procedures to a clear well
-articulated tight exit validation mechanisms are the need of the hour. We have
the bar council, medical council and others who are more interested in the
duration of course, facilities etc. There is nothing wrong in doing so. These
can be guidelines issued and proper inspection agencies can verify the claims
of universities periodically. But they should safe-guard the exit! Such a
validation agency should be set up by the centre as an independent body. This
body should have access to experts in various fields to set the standards of
validation of knowledge and make it relevant and up-to-date.
Such a clean
and professional validation body can benefit the nation as well as the
aspirants in many ways. Firstly, it presents a uniform, consistent and
comparable qualification mechanism. The would-be consumers can avail the
services reasonably confident of the quality. Secondly, over a period of time,
these skills can be made highly comparable to the western standards. Even if
not, the gaps or differences can be understood clearly. For example, an Indian
doctor needs to pass certain exams before getting approval to practise in the
UK or US. What are these set of exams? What is that gap in the body of
knowledge which these countries regard important? Answers to these will help
our validation body to come out with recommendations, hold parleys with other
agencies in the west and provide a clear direction in terms of upgrade or a
country specific additional part as the case may be. Thirdly, the validated
credentials serve as a reference/verification when the aspirants want to study
abroad further. The foreign educational institutions need to be concerned only
with the validation body to understand all the details. They will have less to
worry about the type of semester, duration, quality of subjects studied etc.
Finally, such a rigorous validation will have a domino effect in terms of
raising the quality of education, infrastructure, faculty, labs etc. Students
will automatically move to schools or colleges that offer them best chance of
passing the validation. This will consequently put pressure on the institutes
to own up and deliver quality education.
Let me step back into reality. My calendar and his are full for the next few weeks with filling forms,
making photocopies, arranging for demand drafts,
appointments at colleges for application submission and booking train tickets
for tests in different cities. This is like a full-fledged project work! But
that alone is not enough. 
