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Your timely and relevant cover story ‘Outrage! Joshi’s IIM grab angers middle class India’ (EW March) makes one wonder what was the real motive behind the HRD minister’s decision to slash tuition fees in IIMs. I feel it’s a cheap poll gimmick which the minister hoped would consolidate the middle-class vote bank in favour of his party. But surprisingly the middle class which laps up unmerited subsidies in every sphere of life is dead against it.

If the question of affordability is to be addressed, Dr. Joshi should have actually ordered the creation of a corpus fund at each IIM to provide targeted financial assistance to meritorious students from low-income households. Nationalised banks and financial institutions could be advised to extend education loans without collateral for students who have qualified for admission into IIMs.

But no, I think the real issue is that Dr. M.M. Joshi wants to rule over the IIMs and he is finding out new and crooked ways and means to achieve his ends.

Ashish Kumar
Ahmedabad

Thank you for publishing the special report ‘Is India Shining? Head Boys and Girls speak out’ (EW March). I am a class XI student and was happy to read the viewpoints of my generation.

Unfortunately though the future of the young generation is shaped by the education policies formulated by politi-cians and bureaucrats, our views are seldom taken into account when policies are made. As a result young people have to pay heavily for the foolish mistakes of the older generation.

The youth in this country who are the majority of the population would really appreciate if EducationWorld leads a campaign to include representatives of higher secondary students in all education policy formulation councils.

Mary J. Kutty
Kochi

Your cover story ‘Joshi’s IIM grab angers middle class India’ (EW March) is easily the most comprehensive coverage on the controversy.

I was especially pleased that you emphasised that lower tuition fees don’t necessarily improve the access of poor students into the five-star campuses of the IIMs. On the contrary it benefits rich students who can afford the high fees charged by coaching schools. Therefore as you have argued in your cover story, the blanket fee cut from Rs.1.5 lakh per year which is only half of what it costs to train an IIM graduate to Rs.30,000, is completely unjustified and immoral. In effect it means that if Anil Ambani’s son is admitted into an IIM he will pay the same tuition fee as the son of a railway porter. How can such a fee structure be justified? In the US the best universities provide scholarships for students from poor families based on their household incomes. Why can’t the same system be adopted in India?

The fee cut order issued by Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi is completely irrational and downright stupid. You have done well to oppose it strongly.

R. Mudholkar
Amravati (Maharashtra)

I read with interest your special report ‘Danger! Outdated syllabuses!’ (EW February). I am particularly moved that thought is being given to this issue at all and feel that your feature holds out hope for the future of the education system in India. This is because of the depth of insight it offers.

Of course, having lived in the US for quite a few years, I am hardly in touch with the issues at stake. However, I would be interested to know what can be done by an educator of Indian origin living abroad.

I have a suggestion which could be transformed into a feature story. The theme: students from Indian universities generally seem to have good technical and theoretical backgrounds but lack the problem solving and application-oriented analytical skills that students in the US naturally develop. This is indicative of a deeper cultural bias, which gives prime importance to education per se, and less weightage to what the education is for.

In contrast, students in the US are first concerned with the practical importance of what they learn to an extent that the intellectual curiosity of trying to understand the underlying principles is sometimes lost. Meaningful industry internships are a convenient way of introducing application-oriented know-ledge and social skills and add value to education. Typically there are issues of quality here too, but these can generally be overcome provided there is a certain minimum interest on the part of educators to oversee students’ work.

Sivakumar S. Krishnan
IUPUI, Indianapolis

Content is key

What an insightful special report on outdated syllabuses (EW February) in higher education you have written! My father (Prof. V.K. Tripathi of IIT Delhi) and I have been working on education syllabus development for a while now. I’m pleased to note that there are others who realise that it isn’t enough to just open new colleges and universities. The content being taught is the key to the success of the Indian education system. Dogmatism that champions the cause of irrelevance at the higher education level only adds insult to the injury caused by even more irrelevant primary and secondary education. The fact that 70 percent of our young people quit school before they enter class VIII should keep policy-makers awake at nights.

I especially appreciate your views in defence of liberal arts education and its significance, which is lost on the myopic industry heads today. Current GDP growth rates will indeed be short-lived if the structural changes you recommend are not implemented soon. Please do take a look at a petition we sent to the Parliamentary committee on education: http://yidream.org/education.shtml.

I hope to read more of your thought-provoking articles in times to come.

Rohit Tripathi on e-mail

Congratulations on your very well done cover story on IIMs. However I need to point out one very important correction.

The IIMs were not set up by Acts of Parliament (unlike IITs). They were promoted as independent registered societies. This is a very important distinction, because they were structured to run autonomously with minimum government interference.

Sandeep Parekh
New Delhi