Indian Education System

[VReddy]

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main23.asp ... matter.asp

Households with an income of less than Rs 5,000 per month, were asked how much they were willing to pay for government school education, if they had to pay for it themselves. The average answer was an astonishing Rs 66 per month. When asked what they thought it cost the government. They said Rs 100 per month per child. Nearly 37 percent of them felt the government was spending about Rs 50!

In reality, these schools cost you and me, the taxpayers, on a conservative estimate, Rs 800 per month per child! Government school education is valued by its consumers at less than 1/8th of what it costs the exchequer.

The article provides an interesting solution though i am not sure about its feasibility in India but nevertheless a good read. I am especially shocked to read about the amount of money being spent every month on a Govt School Child. The Officials seem to be having a damn good time of it !!!

[Kumar]

wow Rs800 per month? I am shocked.. I am curious to find out how much private schools spend on each student..

[shaili]

Average fees in private schools is between 600-1500 rs per month. these are the lowest rung pvt schools.

the so called international schools that have become a big fad these days - charge between 12000 to 40000 rs per month

thats the 2 ends of the spectrum

[prasen9]

With all these new IITs opening up, where are they going to get qualified faculty members especially given the pittance they pay them?  Will they be of similar quality? Almost certainly, no.  Good students will certainly flourish even when their teachers are mediocre and perhaps down the road the standards will increase.  Let us hope so.  Or else, there will be two tiers of IITs created with the BITs/IIIT/Jadavpur/other top state univs interspersed between them.

What do people think will be the effect of this expansion?

Note the locations of the IITs: IITs.  Why is there no IIT in Bangaluru and Kochi (or elsewhere in Kerala)?  I know that Bengaluru has the IISc but it is a very small post-graduate college.  Notice the preponderance of IITs in the north especially the close proximities of Jaipur, Delhi, Roorkee, Ropar, Mandi chain and you could even throw in Varanasi, Kanpur, Patna in it.  I know the states are small in the north, but, why are there no IITs in the northeast except Assam?  And then we will complain if they want to secede.  Nothing in Jharkhand and Chattisgarh either even though Jharkhand ranks 13th by population among the states and there are 16 IITs now.  Jharkhand has more population than Punjab and Haryana both of whom got IITs.

Were there problems in having IITs in Bengaluru, Kerala, or Jharkhand that I do not know of?

[puneets]

prasen - I'm all for opening new IITs, but I too fear that the level of faculty will fall drastically. I'm not too worried about the level of students, because in my opinion, there are lots of good students to go around. Profs in IITs are paid too little, and this is the main reason why a lot of outstanding people don't opt for a faculty position in IITs. I know a lot of Phds here in the US who at one point were contemplating going back and joining IITs as faculty members, but stopped short because of the remuneration package.

[suresh]

Reposting what I said in another thread

Our politicians (aka administrators) are never interested in improving things at a grass-roots level. They always go for things that lead to a big bang so that they can trumpet their achievements to their constituency. This is true not just for sports but also in education. Primary  education at the school level is suffering from lack of good teachers (who wants to be a teacher when a BPO job pays more) among other things. Of course, the big honchos in Delhi don't give a damn about it. They are busy opening IITs like paan/beedi shops -- everybody (who counts) is happy -- the state level politicians and the national level ones.

[suresh]

Prasen raises an important question -- where are the faculty going to come from? There are seven new IIT's and roughly an equal number of IISER/NISER's. There is going to a huge demand for faculty members and the supply just isn't there unless significant compromises are made with regard to the quality. Needless to say, the Union Minister of State for HRD, D Purandeswari came up with some ill-thought suggestions during her address at IIT Madras during the inauguration of the Golden jubilee celebrations. Among other things, she suggested recruiting retired faculty, promote in-breeding (already a big problem at IITs and most Indian institutions). Here is the Hindu report:

Package to woo retiring IIT faculty mooted

I wonder which planet they live on. The (largely) autonomous functioning of the existing IIT's have been seriously undermined during the terms of the current and previous HRD ministers. For instance, faculty members at IITs discovered the opening of three or four new IITs (I forget the precise number) such as Gujarat/Rajasthan by reading the newspaper. In fact, the prospectus for incoming entrants had been printed and had no info about the new IITs during counselling! I pity folks at IITK who have to do double duty teaching IIT Rajasthan students. Their research activities will typically stop under such circumstances.

Suresh

[puneets]

In the long term, how do IITs plan to woo professors when they are giving them a salary of Rs. 20,000 per month ?

[puneets]

Full courses and lectures conducted by IIT and IISC professors.
http://www.youtube.com/profile_play_list?user=nptelhrd

This channel provides technical lectures from all seven Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

[suresh]

In the long term, how do IITs plan to woo professors when they are giving them a salary of Rs. 20,000 per month ?

Salaries are somewhat higher than that. Including HRA, a full prof gets around 50K at the bottom of the scale. An Assistant Professor will get about 36-37K.

Suresh

[puneets]

Thanks for the clarification Suresh. The other day, I was looking at this ad [http://www.iitb.ac.in/recruit/newspaper_adv.html], and got the impression that the asst. profs are paid an amount in the vicinity of Rs. 20K.
Btw, what does Rs.18400-500-22400 mean ?

[suresh]

Btw, what does Rs.18400-500-22400 mean ?

It is called the pay scale. The scale ranges from 18400 to 22400 with annual increments of 500 and the numbers refer to basic pay. One adds allowances such as Dearness allowance (DA); House Rent Allowance (HRA) and a few other sundry allowances. All allowances are specified in terms of percentages of the basic pay. In A1 cities such as the metros, HRA is at 30%, DA is linked to inflation via the consumer price index and is currently larger that 100%, probably 120%. So some one with a basic pay of 18400 living off-campus in an A1 city will receive in excess of 46000/- per month. Of course, take home salaries after deductions such as Income Tax/Provident Fund is smaller than that number.

Suresh

[suresh]

I must correct the numbers for an Asst./ Prof. at the bottom of his payscale(basic pay=12000). It is not 36K but more like 30-32K.

[prasen9]

And at least in computer science, guys with a Ph.D. can get what 2-3 lakhs a month in industry?  Taking a 90% paycut to teach is a bitter pill to swallow even if people want to teach.  I took a 20-25% paycut and it was okay, but, 90% is tough.

[10nnix]

And at least in computer science, guys with a Ph.D. can get what 2-3 lakhs a month in industry?  T

Which industry? Which country? In India, most of times Comp sc PhDs are undeployable (over qualified) other than in a few companies such as Google (who only need some 5 PHDs in india). In India, no body gets 2-3 Lakhs unless we are talking about a very senior level position (tech positions are seldom considered senior positions the way indian service industry is structured).