The Hindu : IT Advisor calls for quality education

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 09, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

IT Advisor calls for quality education

By Our Staff Reporter

VIJAYAWADA JAN. 8. IT Advisor to the Government of Andhra Pradesh, T. Hanuman Chowdary, underlined the need for opening more professional, technical and non-technical colleges in the country to expand "knowledge-based education'' among the people.

Ridiculing the critics who were opposing the growing number of colleges, Dr. Chowdary, however, regretted that quality and standard education was not being imparted in Indian colleges and universities, compared to the advanced countries.

Though in terms of quantum, Andhra Pradesh was producing annually, 63,000 engineers, 20,000 IT professionals, 12,000 MBAs and an equal number of MCAs, those coming out of these institutions woefully lacked knowledge in their respective fields.

``So pathetic is their state now that many of the MBAs are selling soaps and other products for meagre salaries of Rs. 2000 per month, '' Dr Chowdary said.

Delivering his keynote address at a seminar on "Building Knowledge Based Organisation'' organised by the Montessori Mahila Kalasala, Dr. Chowdary said that what is required is not quantity but quality engineers and professionals in the country.

Management of knowledge should be left to the domain of persons with vision and not IAS officers and bureaucrats, he said. Most of the professionals and students have only `bookish' knowledge, but not practical knowledge that could be related to the phenomenon on which they are expected to work, he said.

Extensively using the aid of statistics, the IT advisor said paradoxically also out of the 16 crore people in the country under the age group of 18-24 years, only five per cent of them are in universities.

``In England, the Labour party won the polls by going to the people and telling them that it would provide education to the people, but in our country politicians seek votes with promises of issuing pattas," he said sending the audience into laughter.

For every 1000 persons, Japan produces 110 scientists, Germany 86 scientists as against 3.5 in India. Cautioning that China would emerge as a major superpower in the world, Dr. Chowdary said that what India needs is knowledge-based education towards modernisation, but certainly not westernisation. He pointed out that the growth of IT industry in India had fuelled an increasing number of divorces among couples, like in the US where an average individual marries five times in his life time.

I. V. Chalapathi Rao, in his presidential remarks, said that there was nothing wrong in globalisation as even Adi Shankaracharya had stated that the entire world was one single family. Prof. Rao said that there was no point in the country producing lakhs of engineers and professionals every year without any standard that could not withstand global competition.

Earlier, in his inaugural address, L. Venugopal Reddy, Vice-Chancellor of Nagarjuna University, said knowledge should be "explicit and should not be confined to individuals. It should be a two-way process, benefiting the society at large.''

He called for introducing performance appraisal system in colleges and industries to enhance knowledge among individuals.

Director and correspondent of the college, V. Koteswaramma, head of the Department of Business Administration, P. Adilakshmi, also spoke.

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