he joined the wrong educational organization. Instead of IIT he should have
(like me) chosen a degree in Economic development or Education. I opted out of
engineering college (I never joined one despite being selected in state and
national exams) and chose Economics.
There should be better career advice ofor guys like him.
Umesh
Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
ENCOUNTER
'IITians Are Big Fools'
( Highlights mine----cm)
No, it wasn't a frustrated or failed aspirant but a former IITian who said
this last week at a lecture, while addressing a crowd of nearly a thousand
IITians.
Rajesh Gajra
No, it wasn't a frustrated or failed aspirant but a former IITian who said this
last week at a lecture while addressing a crowd of nearly a thousand IITians
and other college students during the annual Techfest at Indian Institute of
Technology, Bombay (IITB). But coming from Dunu Roy, who, unlike his colleagues
and peers, decided to pursue grassroot integration of technology with local and
practical requirements, it shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone who has
followed this IITian's career.
But for a first-timer, the 90-minute talk and the subsequent Q&A could well
have been an eye-opener. Provoking his audience by calling them "big fools" who
know nothing about India and its village life, Roy said the IITians are victims
of the politics of education and science. He added that the first lesson he
learnt was that technologists and engineers are under an illusion that they get
to take the decisions. That was not all. He went on to say that environmental
dynamics aren't understood by engineers who seem to specialise in solving one
problem to create another one, thereby creating a "sustainability for the
engineering profession-and not for the people".
"How many of you will end up working for the Haliburtons and Microsofts of the
world?" he asked. And then proceeded to answer by pointing out that many of the
students would do so because "Indian technical education is geared to meet
global demands". The collapse of the US education system has led to a shortage
of scientists and technologists, he said, which is why the courses they [the
IITians] are learning are required for the US". Since Indian engineers are also
cheaper than the American counterparts, "it made good sense for the Indian
government to promote technical education so that you can provide cheap service
to the US." Therefore, he suggested, the curriculum has changed. Earlier, he
pointed out, IITs had a more integrated approach and also taught humanities,
ethics and logic. But these subjects were removed in order to hasten the
production of 'unreal' technologists.
The original vision to set up IITs stemmed from the independence movement. The
Indian leaders at that time realised "the need to have trained scientists and
technologists" who could provide equal rights to food, shelter, education and
work to the people. The idea was to take the "best from universal education,
invest in pockets like IITs (so that) they would return their expertise to the
common pool of the country." Which is why the money to fund the IITs comes
from the exchequer, he pointed out.
And then came perhaps the most thought-provoking part of the lecture.
Referring to the hyped-up success stories of IITians -he cited the example of
Kanwal Rekhi, a Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist- who have earned
millions of dollars, Roy posited that while the ostensible aim of education is
to teach us about success, most of our learnings comes from analysing and
understanding failures. For every one IITian who makes money, there are 10
others who don't. And no one talks about the thousands of IITians who stay back
and work for the country despite encountering victimisation by domestic
politics of science and technology. Urging the young students to ask questions,
and not just be receivers of "wisdom", Roy asked them to "learn the laws of
motion of society and not just the laws of motion of science."
And coming from him, it did not sound phoney. For after his post-graduation
from IITB, Roy moved to Shahdol district of Madhya Pradesh and started the
Vidushak Karkhana as part of the Shahdol Group carrying out focussed work on
building a development model for the district and its implementation, in
conjunction with local people.He was involved in this for 17 years during which
he earned his income primarily out of repairing bicycles in the village
district. He then shifted to Delhi for a four-year stint with the World Wide
Fund for Nature, and later set up the Hazards Centre, a multi-disciplinary
consultancy group.
It's rare for IITians to be the recipients of such blunt talk. And it should
be noted that the student organisers of Techfest invited Dunu Roy to give this
talk after accepting his condition that there would be no restriction on the
content of his lecture. So perhaps the IITians are not such big fools after all.
_______________________________________________
assam mailing list
[email protected]
http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park,
(Washington D.C. Metro Region)
MD 20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
website: www.gse.harvard.edu/iep
---------------------------------
The all-new Yahoo! Mail goes wherever you go - free your email address from
your Internet provider._______________________________________________
assam mailing list
[email protected]
http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
