From: kumarr@ivan.intel.com (Kumar Ranganathan)
Subject: College students in third-world India
Reply-To: kumarr@ivan.intel.com
Organization: Development Tools Operation, Intel Corp., Hillsboro  OR
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 92 19:17:29 GMT



The following article appeared in the Wall Street Journal in 1982. Much of it
is as relevant today if not more.

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In Third-World India, College Students Study Humanities, Not Skills
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Calcutta- At 102 Amherst St. there is a sagging old school, grimy from
Calcutta's appalling pollution, scarred by years of overuse.

From 6:15 to 10:45 a.m. this is Rammohan College for 3,280 girls. From 10:45
to 5:15 p.m. it's City College for 2,500 boys. And from 5:15 to 9 p.m. it is
Anandamohan College for 1,300 night students.

All three are part of the University of Calcutta, the biggest university in the
world. There are 200,000 students at Calcutta and 257 colleges stretched over
three states; 75000 undergraduates sit for degree exams every year, and there
are 13000 students in graduate school.

In a country as poor as India, a university might be expected to offer the
flicker of possibility, the intellectual means to move the nation ahead. So why
is it that with its colleges working triple shifts, India still labors among
the most backward countries in the world ? ...

OUT OF FOCUS

The British founded the University of Calcutta, the first in India, 125 years
ago because they needed a few educated Indians to help them administer this
huge backyeard of their empire. Rich rajahs built the first campus, but the
British wrote the curriculum, which was heavy on humanities, light on science
and completely in English - perfect for turning out clerks, the Indians say.

But 34 years after independence, the University of Calcutta hasn't done much to
change. The education ministry says a million Indians are studying the
humanities; another half-million are going to college to become clerks.

"A poor country can't afford the luxury of an education in the humanities,"
argues J.D. Sethi, a New Delhi professor and former government education
planner. Adds Barun De, the head of a social-science research center in
Calcutta, "Our people are fairly well educated but totally unemployable."

WHAT THEY WANT

Jobs are scarce in India: Only 23 million of the country's 680 million people
hold paying jobs (two-thirds of the population live on subsistence farms). So
there's a spurt in interest in college courses that teach skills. At Presidency
College, the most prestigious of Calcutta's colleges, 300 students a year apply
for admission to the chemistry and physics departments.

But change comes at a hobbled march here. Presidency has room for onl 36
chemistry students and 36 physics students. It had the same number in 1938 when
B.S. Basak, Presidency's principal, was a student there himself. And even when
chemistry applications climbed to 750 one year, Presidency wouldn't expand the
department because "our requirements might change again someday," Prof. Basak
says...

GLACIAL PACE

It's a ponderous system. Calcutta's economics syllabus hasn't changed since
1975...

India, ancient as civilization itself, is suspicious of change, and its
smothering bureaucracy is resistant to it. Many students, too, oppose a shift
to more practical studies. "Withdraw job-oriented education," demands a sign
plastered in a Presidency College stairway.

So in this developing country, Calcutta doesn't even have a program in rural
development. There isn't a course in small-business administration, even though
small businesses turn out countless products from fabric to steel....

					- June Kronholz
					(The Wall Street Journal (1982)).
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian