Education – 922

Prof. Garg hits a roadblock!

Prof. Garg. Sounds old. May be it does. But it sounds interesting for sure.

Ever since I can remember things, I have wanted to teach, share my gyaan. I have wanted to interact and learn from all the bright minds. And I want to spread the curiosity virus. And I have wanted to help people get out of the rat race.

I have taught in the past with IMS but I am not sure if I was adding value there. I was teaching public speaking skills to students at tier two cities around Delhi. But I did enjoy the teaching bit and feedback from students was encouraging.

Anyways, I have been applying to business schools since two weeks now and funnily, no one wants to hire me. Worse, they dont even acknowledge that I have written into them!. Except one – they replied and when they realized I was from the batch of 2006, they too backed out. The count stands at 7-0 right now. Lets see who gets lucky!

And until then, I am available for coaching/tutoring. Do let me know if you want me to ;P

Good Afternoon Prof. Garg

So , it happened. After dreaming about it for years, I finally addressed a room full of students and gave them gyaan. I am aligned with one of the MBA coaching institutes here in Delhi and I am supposed to talk to MBA students about interviews and group discussions.

~~Today~~ Yesterday was officially my first class. There were 32 students (but when I took attendance, I marked 36 as present 🙂 reminds me of glorious MDI proxies and jokes). I gave them gyaan on group discussions. Most of it was from instructor’s notes but I did add my learning over the years. Dint have enough time for their feedback but from what I can judge, they would have liked me. After all, only four people were yawning.

P.S.: Education and Teaching is something I am very keen on and will contribute to.

Application to Berlin School of Creative Leadership

In my recent trip to Cannes, I chanced upon attending a talk by Michael Conrad and Prof. Casse on Berlin School EMBA and I realized that I need to apply to Berlin School. Along with the application, I had to write why is it important for me to attend the Berlin School. This is what I wrote (I have removed some specifics) …

I have always been known me as a dreamer and I think of myself as nothing less than a revolutionary. I am in a constant pursuit of that elusive new thing that can change the way we communicate and live. Never scared of raising that lonesome hand in a classroom of dutiful students or walking down that dark alley behind buildings or pouring yellow, green and blue liquids in that large beaker in chemistry labs, I have always been on an adventure trip. Where there are no roads, no clear destinations and certainly no guarantee of returns. For me, the journey towards the goal is more important than actually reaching the milestone.

Curiosity is something that comes naturally to me. I can boast of a logical flow of thought and questioning mind. I have realized that I have the skills required for being a creative leader. All I need is place to polish them and bridge the gaps that I have.

I see Berlin School of Creative Leadership as the perfect platform from where I can start that revolution that I knew I would start some day. The opportunity to interact with world-renowned creative leaders, handpicked peer group and wide cultures from Berlin to Tokyo to NY to my home state of Delhi, India is very unique and lucrative. I have realized that I need a cross-cultural exposure to understand people better and Berlin School can do that for me.

For me the programme is as much as about learning as contributing to the learning of their peer. With me, I bring to the table a child like enthusiasm, a never say die attitude and a lot of positive energy to the team. I can also enrich the learning of other participants by my understanding of businesses, buyer behavior and identifying gaps that potential businesses can exploit.

For me, creativity as a discipline is not limited to only advertising or branding. It certainly does not mean writing smart copies and coming up with brand identities and churning out work for clients. Instead, creativity is a way of thinking. It’s the way you approach businesses and ideas. It’s more of a methodology, a route that you take to reach the end product. The end product could be an award winning piece of work for a client, a new way to arrange your bookshelf or even a new business.

I believe that there is as much science to creativity as there is art. Experience at Berlin School will help me find a right balance between the two. I have always had focus on creating original thought and its application in the business world. With the thesis I am proposing on identifying traits of successful digital brands and creating a framework for the same, Berlin School will help me with access to leading digital brands. Peers and faculty at Berlin School will help me scrutinize these ideas and create a robust framework.

Berlin School will play a vital role in my career and I am looking at the experience at Berlin School to rediscover myself.

Any thoughts anyone?

As I was posting this, I realized that I have made few mistakes in the application. Now that application is gone, I cant really change it but ought to be careful next time around.

More Rational thoughts on the reservation policy in India

The last piece I wrote was an emotional outburst. This is more rational argument on reservations. I shall try to figure out the impact of reservations, thoughts on what could have been done and finally is there any hope?

Ok why reservations in the first place?
Reservation was the card played by the VP Singh govt. when they decreed for the first time that India needs reservations to help the lower castes. Some people credit their win at the centre to this card only. Obviously its a thing of past and no one can say what really happened. After-all history is written by people who win the battles.

I am not saying that reservations is a card that is played when you want to elections. You actually want to help the backward classes. You are motivated by general upliftment of the country.

Is it really going to help?
I have my doubts. These doubts are based on following observations.

I don’t have numbers but I am told that at engineering colleges of repute (not the ones that are opened in small homes on outskirts of Bangalore), the candidates admitted from reserved classes don’t pass at all. Most of them flunk in first and second year and stop studying thereon.

Then a lot of seats for reserved categories are filled with people getting less than 10% marks. End of the day education is about quality of students and maturity of interactions between them. If there are 53% people from general categories and average scores of 80, and 47% of people with average scores of 20, what kind of discussions are we talking about?

There seats remain empty because there aren’t enough applications in the first place to grant admission to people belonging to reserved categories. If an institute can intake 100 students and it has to start a course with 80 students only because we could not find enough people to take reserved seats, aren’t we depriving other students of an opportunity to study?

Obviously I don’t have numbers to prove or reject these claims. Can someone help me with this?

To end this chapter (if I may say), honestly I don’t think that reserving more seats is going to help. They should rather try to find out why do people from these classes perform this bad in the first place. Is there a flaw in the primary education system? Is it because they assume that education for them is going to be easy and hence no need to put in effort?

What will be the impact and what could be possible outcomes?
Impacts would be many-fold. For the students that avail this opportunity, students that are now deprived and the country itself.

Reservations means that only the best from the education system get into quality higher institutions. What happens to people who were average? They would have to settle for below average education. And because of this, they would miss the opportunity that could have transformed them from average to exceptional.

This also means that general quality of education will come down. Not because people from reserved categories cant perform or they lack intelligence. But because they are not equipped to face higher education. Mind you a person can be intelligent and ill-equipped at the same time.

Brain-drain might be back. And with a bang. I can already foresee a lot of talented budding doctors, engineers leaving the country in search of a place where their talent is respected. Not their castes.

All the hoopla about FDI and India’s growth story might be in for a rude shock. If I was Microsoft or Google or Suzuki for that matter, I would not want to set shop in India because I know that finding good people would be tough and costly. It would also mean that business environment is unconducive. And once the growth story stops, then its a debate for another day if the country would grow or not.

Is there a way to help backward classes?
Getting a reservation done at under-graduate level does not guarantee that the life standard would improve. This move might create a large work force that is unemployable. And this would bring in more frustration. You are educated and cant find a job. From personal experience, I know for a fact that there is no feeling worse than that.

So what can we do to change things for people who have been oppressed? To start with I think we need to change the way they live. A child learns as much from his parents as from his surroundings. How about taking a cue from Madarsas and Gurukuls and replicate this in mainstream? These are the places where gurus preach and teach kids about virtues of life. Make them aware of the world around them. If we cant provide quality education to these kids at formative stages of their lives, how about making the system unconventional.

I used to work with an NGO called Pratham and they used this concept really beautifully. They would take a community and teach all the underprivileged children there. Mind you – underprivileged, not the reserved category. And they did it very well. That model runs on a self-sustaining model and is awesome. Can share more details if someone is interested in knowing more about it.

What can be done to mark protest against this move?

How about getting talking to all bloggers to write about it? At least the ones with reach like Mutiny, DesiCritics etc.?

Can this be a topic for blogathon? Anyone from their team listening/reading?

Help YFE and other forums with online propaganda and marketing.

Make an online task force and spam news websites with comments, thoughts and opinions. And make these quality comments so that they have to raise it on their prime-times. Knowing Indian media, they would anyways do anything to hike their TRPs.

I am strongly against any kind of mass agitations that stops the normal functioning of the country. I voiced my opinions on the medico strikes, batti bandhs etc. I think I was wrong when I took that stand and I need to change. Now I am neutral to it. Is there a strong case of a mass agitation?

I am simply out of ideas. Can someone please put forth more thoughts so that we can actually do something constructive rather than just debating? Another peril of Indian education system is that we start debates and never finish things. Lets come forward with solutions rather than talking about things.

To end this on a light note, I was thinking about way forward for people who advocate reservation

Just education is no point. We need to reserve places on the buses also. How about roads? Special clubs for reserved categories. Does someone remember ‘Dogs and Indians not allowed’ posters? How about ‘dogs and unreserved not allowed’ posters? Come to think of it, this could be an awesome article.

Now that we have reservations for SC, ST, OBC, how about talking about reservations on the basis of religion? region? height of a person. Imagine – we only accept applications from people who are 5 feet 7 inches and weight 150 KGs.

How about creating small states for every simgle category that you can identify and then ruling over them? Who wants 29 states. Lets split India into 19043 states all with homogeneous people. There could be a state for people who are bald and have Sharma as their surnames. Oops what about ladies then? Will they marry inter-caste, inter-state? Will these be approved?

Please understand that views submitted are personal only and might be flawed. Please help me see the correct picture.

Crossposted

Reservations in India – A reality now

Rediff.com says that Supreme Court of India has given its nod to 27 percent reservation to the OBCs. They have excluded the creamy layer from the reservation and they have said that this reservation would be periodically reviewed.

I have only one thought on my mind. Why did I ever study? All I could have done was wait for this day to come, get a fake certificate by paying a babu some 500 bucks, score less than average on JEE or CAT, get into the best educational institution in India, get a fat pay packet and live happily ever after.

I understand that we are a democratic country and we have to win elections, we have to divide the voters and win the electorate and we have to create a fuss on our “national son” not joining the cabinet. But want about the future of the nation? Aren’t these educational institutes supposed to nurture the talent for tomorrow? Are we going to run the nation with engineers and managers and doctors who are below average?

I am not saying even for a minute that OBCs cant perform as well as regular people. These castes and creeds were made in ancient India because of the way country was ruled. This in my opinion should have been abolished by the constitution in the first place. All I am trying to say is that because of the reservation, many deserving candidates would now have to go for alternative careers.

Also wouldn’t this incident set up precedents for every other group of people? Currently it is MNS in Maharashtra that is talking about reservation on the basis of region. There are certain groups that are asking fore reservation on the basis of religion. Tomorrow every tom dick and harry would want a reservation because they are different. What if I get 10,000 supporters and since I am bald, I demand reservations for bald people? And what if we start granting these reservations, a day shall come when majority of population that falls under “regular”, “non-reserved” category would be fighting for 10 seats. May be they can then demand reservation for “unreserved” category. Arent we dividing the country ourselves? Aren’t we doing what East India Company did to us?

And what about all those hate crimes that would now happen? I can already see these institutions polarizing in two sects. One from the reserved categories and one from unreserved. What about the poor unfortunate students that will have to face the brunt of the entire political drama?

Whatever has happened is unfortunate. There are other better ways to help OBCs reach a good living standard than reservations. I had high hopes on the Supreme Court of India. They have proved correct in the past but this time, at least in my opinion, they have made a mistake. No amount of argument would now dissuade me from speaking against education system in India.

I am so sorry to have voted for a govt. that took this step and I feel cheated right now.

Author took all the entrance tests that a school kid can take after his 12th class examinations. Got through one test to join a course at Delhi University. Took two years to get respectable enough score at CAT to reach MDI Gurgaon and now would preach that there is no point in pursuing formal education in India.

His other posts on reservation and education system in India are here, here, here, here and here.

Indian IT programmers – where are thou hiding?

Disclaimer: I would be slaughtering a lot of sacred cows in this text. Please avoid reading if you cant stand negative opinions.

About 5 months ago, I got this wonderful idea that could have potentially changed the way we used the Internet. It was something really useful and it did not rely on advertising as its revenue option. I spoke to quite a few people about it and everyone was excited about it. In everyone’s opinion it was bound to be a hit.

But there was a hitch. I could not find enough coders to help me create that application. I thought finding coders would be easy. Day in and day out we hear about the greatness of Indian techies. Media, Professionals and even politicians had no doubts on the coding prowess of us Indians. It was looking like a cake walk.

Confident of finding these coders fast, I tried everything from colleges to IT training institutes (NIITs, Aptechs of the world), mailing lists, online and offline networking events, referrals, outsourcing but I could not find enough people who could work with me. I was ready to pay any kind of salary or project fees or even stake in the business idea. And I did not want to develop a complex application like a new operating system. It was a really small application that would have taken a team of 3 coders about a month to complete in PHP.

Initially I thought I am unlucky that I cant find talent. When I spoke to other people trying to start their own IT companies, I was surprised to know that they also faced the same problem. They could not find enough quality programmers.

Coming to real issue, what happened to all those lakhs of students that passout from thousands of engineering colleges spread across hundreds of locations in our country? What about those uncountable number people working with giants like Infosys, TCS, Wirpo? Where do these companies find talent from? Do they go to a different planet to hire them? Or do they compromise on the quality of intake?

I distinctly remember that when I passed out from my college, every engineer was being recruited for software profiles irrespective of fact that his specialization was chemical engineering, metallurgical engineering, mechanical engineering or even biological engineering. They were sent to special training facilities generally located at Goa, Kerala and other holiday places. And in three months, they came back tanned and ready to take coding assignments of any kind.

We might argue that Indian IT companies have the intellectual capital to pull off anything. And we offer a cost advantage compared to rest of the world. Companies started outsourcing their things to hubs like Bangalore and Hyderabad (btw Bangalored is now officially a word) I have only one question. If we dint have the cost advantage, would we still remain competitive in the global market?

I am not saying that everything that we do in India is a waste. In my humble opinion bulk of work done in India is sub-standard. We do not innovate on anything. We just copy things done by others and make it cheap and hope for people to buy it. I keep on hearing interesting things happening in Indian IT space and how the new generation of Indians are reshaping the economy. How all the PE funds and VC firms are bullish on Indian IT. How every engineer and a management graduate wants to open his own firm. I am not doubting the intellect of Indians for a single second. What I am questioning is that we don’t really hone the talent well in the country. Much of our talent goes for a toss …

We take pride in saying that half the Microsoft staff is Indian, half the IBM staff is Indian but do e realize that all those people left our country to go settle in other countries and contribute to their economies?

Try thinking hard, can we come up with a list of 10 great software innovations in India? Is the future bright?

Related to this is my earlier post on Perils of Indian Education System.