There
might be many deserving students (see notes below) with a sincere desire to learn
and a sound set of values in the country who perhaps don't get to
connect with some of the better teachers/professors because good academics seem
to want to cluster in select elite institutes. At least as far as
colleges and universities go I think this is partly because many educational institutions (at
least in India) have somehow managed to tangle themselves up with
incorrect policies that perhaps discourage good professors from joining
them.
One
issue is an imbalance between teaching responsibilities and the time
available to pursue research and scholarship (something that most
good academics want). I discuss this in this
article: http://strike-a-pause.blogspot.in/2016/02/striking-balance-between-teaching-and.html. And what exacerbates the situation is this: There has been a mushrooming of universities in the last 10-15 years with the following "evaluation philosophy": Persist with insane teaching loads under the guise of UGC guidelines, but give zero credit for teaching and evaluate faculty members entirely on publication metrics. This does two things: 1) Throws excellence in teaching out of the window and 2) Pushes faculty members to shoot for short term research objectives (which throws excellence in research out of the window too). End result: All that remains is a focus on quantity with a complete disregard for quality. Good academics will never stay for too long at such places (if they mistakenly join them in the first place). I'm guaranteeing this with zero doubt and complete conviction.
Two
other issues are economics and job security related. I don't think
that needs to be elaborated on much.
Then
there are things like making professors sign attendance registers at specific times! It gets
worse: I know of places where profs are required to get permissions
or sign out and in every time they step out of the department/institute. For such places: Good luck trying to absorb and retain
quality faculty. No quality academic with a sense of self respect
will agree to such stuff unless he or she is going through desperate
times or is at your institute due to some personal reasons /
obligations / commitments.
Last
but not the least: Institutes need to work out their career
progression requirements in accord with their ground realities. To be
more specific: for most faculty members research progress and output
depends fairly strongly on (a) start up grants and/or lab infrastructure provided to them
and (b) Masters and PhD students working with them. If an institute
doesn't invest sufficiently in establishing research labs and/or does
not have a well established post-graduate program (or is unable to
attract quality post-graduate students) then this needs to be
accounted for when making decisions on career progression.
Prospective as well as present faculty members need to feel assured
on this front.
If
government as well as private institutions across the country start
matching what they offer in terms of work conditions, salaries and
job security with at least what elite institutes such as IITs offer we might start seeing a
wider spread of good academics thus making them accessible to a wider
range of students.
--
Note 1:
While reasonable admission criteria certainly have their place in colleges, one crosses the limiting line when even schools start using stringent admission criteria (even for kindergarten or 1st grade in some instances!). This is really weird because if schools can't take the responsibility of educating children from scratch, who will? Innocent little kids running around and playing don't have to be tested before starting their education for heaven's sake!
If I think about qualities based on which I would select students in my classes, I simply come up with this:
A sincere desire to learn, willingness to put in the required effort, patience to steadily move from benchmark to benchmark, humility, a sense of discipline and a firm commitment to use knowledge only for the good of society.
That's it. If these qualities are in place I see myself as being willing and committed to work with students from whatever level they might presently be at. If some students have a natural flair for some subjects, they'll likely move along faster. If not, we go slow, no problem. I would be fine either way if the right value system is in place.
On the other hand if the right values have not set in in a student its better in my opinion that he or she spend some time in service and introspection till the mindset corrects itself before any advanced knowledge be given to them. Else there's every possibility that they will do more harm than good with it.
Note 2:
Note 2:
