MARCH 19, 2018

By Anuja Gupta and Arjun Banerjee

THE world's oldest democracy and the world's largest democracy, an established modern powerhouse and a once again rising star, a young nation and an age-old culture, the eagle and the tiger. There are myriad differences between the way the United States and India function. This piece attempts to shed some light on one such dimension- that of the college education systems in both countries - and determine what India is already doing right and what else needs to be implemented at this level to maximize learning efficiency and capitalize on our potential for a demographic dividend.

The modern educational institutes in India trace their origin to British rule, under whose administrative supervision these institutes were set up. Some of the prominent institutes established at the time were the Serampore College in Howrah, West Bengal (1818), The Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkie (1847), University of Mumbai, the University of Calcutta and the University of Madras (all in 1857).

Education was still imparted in the respective cliques only, thereby retaining their inherent in-group character and creating an impediment towards national, mainstream education.Post-independence, a major agenda of the Indian Government was to facilitate and provide free and compulsory education upto14 years of age.

At present, India is making a host of changes in the educational system tailor-made to the needs and priorities of the world. One of the major initiatives of the Government has been the introduction of the CBCS or Choice Based Credit System, which is a serious initiative to bring equity and efficiency in the Higher Education System of the Government. Presently, the performance of students is judged based on marks obtained in the annual examinations. With the introduction of the CBCS, however, there shall be emphasis on continuous evaluation of the students, discarding rote learning and achieving creativity, experimentation and research-oriented activities.

Another transition that the Indian state is undergoing is its effort to bring everyone under the ambit of literacy. However, there are many hurdles to overcome before the ideal of complete literacy can be achieved. One of the major obstacles that the Government faces in bringing universalisation of collegiate education is the increasing number of college dropouts. In spite of various financial and scholarship programmes offered by the Government, there are still a high number of dropouts among male and female students alike. Girls are often married early around the age of 20,either due to family or neighbourhood pressures or out of immense affection for their beloved.Many young lads in the same vein, whether out of family necessity or a desire for financial independence, care more about finding employment that can support their family,rather than obtaining a mere graduate degree certificate.

The increasing spate of privatisation has led to a concomitant increase in the number of private colleges that often have decent infrastructure facilities, computer-based educational systems and a highly enthusiastic student corpus that makes the interaction between the students and the teachers highly productive. However, there has been a drastic change in the student and teacher relationship in the present from what it was in the past. In the earlier times, teachers were placed on a pedestal in keeping with the "Guru Brahma Guru Vishnu" saying. The teacher was feared and respected, and yet there was an unquestioning faith in the teacher's potential, ability and judgement. Such a sentiment, however, is quickly losing its potency. The teacher is now a mere facilitator introducing the syllabus and topic to the students. Today, the teacher expects challenges from the students, who claim the right to question the teacher until a satisfactory answer is obtained. The teacher is only a known figure till the time he or she is present in the class but outside the classroom, the teacher remains inconspicuous. Thus, changes in the value system have been rather dramatic from what our Indian ethos originally used to consider appropriate once upon a time.

Post digitisation and the all-pervasive effect of the 'networked society', there have been some sweeping changes in the nature and character of the education system at the college level. There is a major emphasis on research and development of indigenous technology both among the teachers and students alike. At the same time, in keeping with the cultural heritage of the country, policy makers assure that collegiate education should imbibe the values of both tradition and modernity. It is imperative that the younger generations of the country are aware of their national heritage, of which they are the descendants. Ergo, the curricula are formulated keeping the national interest in mind. Further, in keeping with the fast pace of globalization, it is now obligatory to be 'computer literate'. Digitisation has opened our windows to a host of opportunities and technical aid is the key to accessing that knowledge. Colleges are now directed to accept reports, projects and class assignments online. An important constituent of the college curriculum is the presentation of an online dissertation. The blackboard along with whiteboards are set up in each classroom for the students to get the flavours of both the chalk and the smart pen. With the digitisation of the library, journals and e-books are available online along with the traditional hard copies for increased and more efficient accessibility for curious minds.

While Indian college education is undergoing radical changes, college education in the US has also been far from sitting idle. While in the US many of the changes India is now experiencing already happened decades or years ago, the US education system also developed over several centuries to reach the stage where it currently stands.

College education in the US saw the light of the day around the mid-17th Century with the establishment of Harvard College, today lovingly addressed as Harvard (University). The Ivy League institutions, including Harvard, were among the oldest to be established and to this day remain some of the most renowned centres of learning in the USA and in the wider world. Over the course of the 20th Century, the number of Bachelor's degree granting institutions here - whether public universities, private universities, community colleges, liberal arts colleges or for-profit colleges- burgeoned from a mere 1,000 at the start to almost 5,000 currently.

One of the major differences between the average US and Indian systems of education is in the style of grading. Maintenance of confidentiality of grades is key in the case of US colleges, while in most institutions of India, most certainly in public colleges, grades are posted often as a list on college notice boards for everyone to see, handed out openly in class, and the like. In India, privacy is thus not maintained as it is in the US, where only the student concerned is privy to their own grades (the others being the Professor and any department faculty member concerned). Universities and affiliated colleges in the US usually have an online one-stop resource hub for students, where their grades are often posted, and can be accessed only by the individual student to view their own grades and emails.In fact, confidentiality in the US is sometimes guided not just by the weight of ethics, but by the force of the law behind it.

Another traditional area of difference between the majority of US colleges versus a number of Indian colleges used to be the greater encouragement of free thinking and learning in the first, versus perhaps still a larger degree of rote learning in the latter, coupled with trusting the Professor in being accurate. However, as we have noted, the gulf here is steadily narrowing.The emphasis on individuality and free thinking allowed the American, and now the Indian, student to challenge and question the Professor and far more openly disagree with them until usually the Professor drills some sense into the head of the student in an alternate fashion. Sometimes though, it may in a good way make the instructor ponder too, leading to better critical thinking and class discussion.

Further differences lie in the fact that college students in the US have tremendous flexibility in selecting their courses for Major or Minor fields, viz. sometimes a seemingly unusual and unrelated combination on the face of it. Perhaps music clubbed together with political science and botany. This wide spectrum of choice is generally not the norm in Indian college education. A study of a particular subject at the undergraduate level as part of an Honours program would entail a focus on that subject alone with only a little variety brought in through 'pass course papers', though under the same general cluster of subjects such as the social sciences, engineering, commerce, science, and so on.With the CBCS model though, some changes in this area are expected. However, the course rigour in the top Indian colleges is probably as much or even greater on many occasions than US colleges. For example, no study sessions are held in India before exams for undergraduate students narrowing down the scope of their exam preparation or answering all their questions from the already tailor-made review guide for them, as happens in the US. Grading scales are often stricter in India and certain universities were well-known for not giving a single per cent over 60 for even the brightest or most assiduous of students. In the US, getting below a 60 is almost as good as failing, and only in the rarest of instances does that happen.

The US still being the richest country in the world in terms of nominal GDP, certainly has a lot of state and donor funding being pumped into their higher education system. That translates directly to the best available infrastructure in the universities, ranging from classrooms equipped often with cutting edge acoustics, automatic doors, well-equipped bathrooms where debates between students can sound something like choosing the lesser evil between the automatic hand dryer and the recycled tissues - the first leading to energy consumption and thus more carbon footprint, versus the latter, that come from felling trees, online databases providing access to a plethora of journals, emergency 911 dialling options from machines available all around campus, and basically some of the most aesthetically pleasing designs of buildings. However, all of this comes at a steep price, for which the average college student often has to take large loans, work three jobs apart from taking their classes only to keep their head above water and have a minimal social life, unless they belong to the rich class.This is exacerbated by the very same fact of the worship of individuality and self-help, where parents push their offspring to fend for themselves early on, and the latter cannot expect financial support after a point from their parents. Those who receive scholarships are truly saved from feeling the pinch, but full scholarship does not come easily at the undergraduate or even at the Master's levels, like it generally does while pursuing a Doctoral degree in the US. College dropout rates are also a concern in US institutes just as it is in India. Marriage is not such a major reason for that in the US as it is in India, rather the concept of 'making a fast buck' or the feeling that higher education, particularly beyond the undergraduate degree, is not for some, is what leads to dropouts. Needless to say, not every dropout becomes a Gates, a Jobs or a Zuckerberg, hence the legitimate concern.

Finally, the attitudes of both Professors as well as students are more casual in the US vis-à-vis India. Everyone in the US, however, is exactly aware that there is an invisible boundary that exists between instructor and student despite an outwardly casual approach. Language, including body language, is more informal than it is in India, which after all derives from the British education system combined with our own strong morals and values, though slowly but steadily American soft power is taking over even here. An interesting difference is that in India, Professors could actually ask a student to leave the class in case someone created an unacceptable disturbance of some sort, but in the US, the University Police is required to be called to physically evict a student from class. A Professor is not empowered to ask a student to leave.

Further, Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) in the US, who are themselves usually Doctoral students of any discipline, help faculty members out with teaching undergraduate students and often grading their papers. GTAs in some universities start teaching their indigenously developed courses from their second year to the undergraduates - thus, there is tremendous independence in designing courses even for Doctoral students. Undergraduate students, for their part, can take the liberty of snacking or sipping on non-alcoholic beverages during class, even while being subjected to the Socratic Method of teaching. This is somewhat akin to the Junior Research Fellowship in India, where qualified candidates obtain a stipend and may be allotted certain undergrad classes of their respective departments oreven function as Research Assistants in various projects. Nonetheless, they do not enjoy the autonomy of gradation or syllabi breakup as a GTA in an American university does.

India and America have shared strategic partnerships in various fields like nuclear energy, defence, economic cooperation and educational assistance. The majority of foreign students studying in America, only second to the Chinese, still come from India. These students are driven to pursue their academic career in America due to better infrastructural facilities, publication aid, research guidance and greater exposure.Many American scholars, on the other hand, have shown keen interest in unearthing the cultural facts of the Indian heritage.We would like our readers to ponder over the issues brought up in the course of this discussion and decide which is better for the Indian system - for example, to what extent the traditional guru position should hold and how much authority teachers should wield in class,the issue of confidentiality versus openness in grades, considering training of our own doctoral research assistants as future professors by allowing them to teach, flexibility in undergraduate course selection, and so on and so forth. Sagacious decisions and unwavering commitment to see them through are crucial to contribute to a rising India's success on the world stage.

Until recently, a fair share of the best Indian brains decided to settle in the USA which was indeed detrimental to the growth story of our country. Today, however, there is a partial volte face, if not an entire one, with many Indians actually returning to India to work or founding their own start-ups, thanks to far better salary structures and/ or availability of opportunities than what existed even a couple of decades ago. The need of the hour for India, being the largest democracy in the world, is to harness the cumulative output of its talented workforce effectively to keep up with the rest of the world. The mindsetought to remain that of a key global partner in the larger scheme of things and not just a South Asian leader or a local hero. Channelling adequate funds into R&D, sufficient scholarship opportunities, greater transparency and scientific curricula addressing the needs of the society are all necessities to ensure that India's demographic dividend remains a demographic dividend, and does not spiral into an abysmal demographic disaster.

(About the authors: ANUJA GUPTA is Assistant Professor, Mrinalini Datta Mahavidyapith College, Birati, Kolkata and ARJUN BANERJEE is Deputy Commissioner, IRS (C&GST), New Delhi. PhD Scholar in Political Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA. Visiting Research Subject Matter Expert, Sandia National Laboratories, USA, 2016. Export Control Visiting Fellow 2015, Dept. of Energy, USA. The views expressed are strictly personal.)