Recruiters estimate that the on-campus job offers in 2010 will be better than in 2009. Can you elaborate on the status of campus recruitments? Do you think the effects of global recession are over?
Recruitments 2010: Its the sunny side up!
Dr H. Chaturvedi, Director, Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH)
“The campus placement situation definitely looks much better this year. More than 40% of our students have already been placed with reputed companies. We hope to complete the placement process by March, 2010.The outcome looks positive and the Indian economy is coming out of the effects of recession.”
Prof Mamkootam, Dean, Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University
“Recession at one stage is completely over. However, I do not foresee a situation where the pre-recession atmosphere can be brought back any time in the near future. Recruiters, this time, are very cautious and companies are much more limited in their ambitions. Recruitment is a risky business and therefore, companies and students are careful.
I can say, though, that the placements this year will be better than the last two years.”
The first online Common Admission Test (CAT) examination was disrupted due to technical glitches. What could have been done better to avoid the disappointment of the students and the community as a whole in these kind of efforts?
Gradual Transformation Towards Online CAT Exams a Pre-requisite
Dr Anwar Ali, Director, Institute of Management Technology
“The first computer-based Common Admission Test (CAT) across the country became a contentious issue following the difficulties in executing the test. However, we at IMT are of the firm opinion that these initiatives are inevitable and that the institutes should approach such situations with a positive bent of mind. The admission process will be a bit delayed this year and we are gearing up for the same with great vigour and enthusiasm.”
Dr H. Chaturvedi, Director, Birla Institute of Management Technology
“I think the CAT Online Examinations should have been taken up by an Indian company instead of being entrusted to Prometric, an American company, as the case was. There should have been a mock online examination and transformation towards an online process had to be gradual. Many students, who appear for the exams, are also from backward and rural areas who do not have any experience in using computers. Mock tests would have helped address this issue.”
The Centre has recently decided to increase the number of seats for students seeking admission to engineering and management schools countrywide. What is your take on this, considering the wide disparity that exists between the Northern and Southern states in relation to management and engineering schools?
Churning Management Graduates to Suit Industry Requirements
Prof B S Sahay, Director, Management Development Institute
“According to the National Knowledge Commission report, presently there are about 90,000 management graduates. This, in 15 years, is going to increase three folds owing to the escalating demand from the industry. Therefore, initiatives have to be taken to cater to the demand and supply patterns. However, quality standards in dissemination of management education have to be rigorously maintained.”
Dr H. Chaturvedi, Director, Birla Institute of Management
“The earlier policy promoted by All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) was to restrict the student intake to 50 seats in B-Schools. This, however, was not financially viable for management institutes. But now they are allowing 120 students in the first year; 180 in the second year, 240 in the 3rd year; 300 in the 4th Year; and 350 in the 5th year.
My suggestion is that opening of new institutes have to be based on rigorous and comprehensive manpower research. This is essential because in 2009, 75000 engineering seats remained vacant. Similar was the case in many management institutes. There should be no mismatch between demand and supply.”
As a continuation of the Silver Jubilee Year celebrations of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) through the year of 2010, the IGNOU Silver Jubilee Special Lecture was organised on “Building Inclusive Knowledge Societies in a Globalised World: Opportunities and Risks” by Her Excellency Ms. Irina G. Bokova, Director General of UNESCO. 
In her address, Irina Bokava, while congratulating IGNOU for its initiatives in democratising education in India, reiterated that the Indira Gandhi National Open University is itself a living embodiment of the subject of her address: Building inclusive knowledge societies in a globalised world. She stated that UNESCO is proud to be associated with IGNOU in a number of fields, including journalism and media literacy, and hosting UNESCO chairs in different areas.
In a befitting ceremony on January 20, 2010, digitalLEARNING saw launch of its 50th issue along with a Curtain Raiser of 6th eINDIA 2010 Conference and Exhibition. It was an evening that saw the presence of many eminent personalities at Claridges, New Delhi. It has been a mandate with digitalLEARNING Magazine to provide with a forum where the stakeholders' perspectives and experiences are brought together to benefit all. Disseminating the best practices and suggesting perspectives of importance to policy makers has been on the digitalLEARNING agenda since its inception. 
Dr. S S Jena stated that his opinion of ICT, earlier, was specifically restricted to Higher Education. With the magazine, he has realised that ICT can be effectively used in other fields including school education and Open Distance Learning (ODL). Shri Subhash C Khuntia congratulated the editorial team of the magazine for the 50th issue. He mentioned that initially, the magazine dealt with a niche area and that it had a jittery start. But with the efforts of the team, the magazine has been a success due to the diverse range of content which deals with contemporary issues. The team has persistently worked on the magazine to fill in the voids existing in the country about the ICT awareness, be it in terms of hardware or software. The magazine has two very important processes embedded in itself 
The research undertaken by the faculty at FMS is largely in their own primary background such as Sociology, Commerce, Finance and related areas. Management is an interdisciplinary subject and therefore research topics vary accordingly. Corporate governance, poverty alleviation, entrepreneurship, and various kinds of health care systems are some of the few areas of research.” 
“MDI's educational programmes attempt to help executives in broadening their understanding and improving their skills to prepare them to face the challenges at higher positions. More than 100 Management Development Programmes every year of varying duration are conducted. The structure focus is on the current areas of interest to executives at the senior, middle, or junior management levels. While the programmes provide inputs to fill knowledge gaps, the emphasis is also on broadening the horizons of participants through case studies, business games, role-plays and exercises.
“IMT Ghaziabad is one of the prestigious institutions to have signed the Erasmus Mundus 2009-2013 which aims at excellence in quality and international cooperation between European and other countries.The objective of the ERASMUS programme is to encourage and support academic mobility of higher education students and teachers within the European Union and other countries. The ERASMUS programme aims to improve the quality and increase the amount of multilateral cooperation between higher education institutions and enterprises and to spread innovation and new pedagogic practice and supports to developing closer links between universities.
“BIMTECH is one of the few business schools which started the student exchange progamme as an integral part of the education and exposure process for students. MINT B-School 2008 methodology ranked BIMTECH in the top 10 in India and 4th in private business schools on international collaborations. The student and faculty exchange programmes are key to our success and growth. Few of our International partnerships include Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Australia), Erasmus University (Netherlands), Chartered International Institute (UK), Philadelhia University (USA). 
The FMS Information Technology Group seeks to keep the institute at the forefront of technology applications in management education. 
“We have been using IT ever since the founding years of MDI. Technology has been integrated into all aspects of the course content to include quizzes, presentations, examination and evaluation systems and all administrative activities,” says Prof. B S Sahay, Director, MDI. 
XLRI Jamshedpur has contributed in developing managerial competence among the pupils through acquisition of specialised knowledge and skills.
IDIOTs in vogue?
We don’t need no education; we don’t need no thought control; no dark sarcasm in the classroom; teacher, leave those kids alone – The Wall by Pink Floyd
Just think if Lata Mangeshkar’s father had not permitted her to sing, or Sachin Tendulkar was restricted from playing cricket. What would they have been doing? It is said that one’s life is all about listening to the heart and chasing own dreams. 3 IDIOTS, the award winning and record breaking film by Rajkumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra conveys the message of pursuing dream and education in one’s life.
Demystifying the myths
“It’s a very well-made film with a message and with a big star. It brings back memories of people’s experience of the education system in India,” says Taran Adarsh, eminent movie reviewer, on the film’s overseas success. The success of ‘3 Idiots’ is just the tip of the iceberg, criticise experts. Though 3 Idiots is thoroughly enjoyable and humorous, the core of the film has fetched criticism on what it says about the future of India’s youth and the “rat race” for joining centres of excellence to study or teach in them.
Every child in our society is not as gifted as Mangeshkar or Tendulkar, and most of the them end up living his father’s dream at an engineering institution or a medical college. In the film, Aamir Khan’s critical argument runs across on our highly institutionalised education system with the underlying message of serious indictment in that. The film also shows a student committing suicide at the beginning raising a pertinent question: Was it suicide or murder?
In the media reports, the director himself revealed that like in ‘3 Idiots’, he had tried hard to convince his father about his desire to pursue film-making. Therefore, according to him, pursuing one’s dreams is very essential, provided it is backed with proper education.
Story and Characters The THREE IDIOTS ON SCREEN
In the fi lm, the three idiots, Rancchoddas Shyamaldas Chanchad (Aamir Khan), Raju Rastogi (Sharman Joshi) and Farhan Qureshi (R Madhavan), are perfect archetypes of the new age
Indian who is essentially a non-conformist, questioning outmoded given premises, choosing to live life on his own terms and chartering new roads that consciously skirt the rat race due to societal or parental pressure – but refuse to become cogs in the wheel. Naturally, they end up
as the Frostian hero (Robert Frost’s Road Not Taken) who made all the difference to his life, and the world, by taking the road less travelled. The campus here could be any Indian college. Usually a dreaded professor, referred to by his initials or acronym, walks around to dry you out of any interest in learning. Rancho points out India’s education system as competitive, high-prssure, rote-heavy, illogical and almost cruel and tutors the audiences through the
messages guiding his friends that says one should follow his heart’s calling if they want to make a difference, having a choice to spend an entire life doing what he likes. The message is no less relevant for the metropolitan youth who are crippled by a despotic disregard for their natural creativity and run after Engineering and medicine like Raju and Farhan who enter the elite engineering college, only to be taught through books and classrooms and not the lessons of life. Not surprisingly, this rote-learning, even from India’s best institutions, produces more of a bureaucracy to serve the corporate and fi nancial sector, rather than producing original thinkers. In the fi lm Sharman Joshi’s character Raju represents the lonely hope for lower income group India, craving only for professional degrees, preferably engineering, to support his family. Madhavan as the third ‘idiot’, who wanted to be a wildlife photographer takes admission into Imperial College of Engineering, which for him and many
others in this country is a ticket to “neighbour’s envy, parent’s pride” territory. Principal Viru Sahastrabuddhe known as Virus, venerating the cuckoo whose life begins with murder, denotes the high level of stress and competition, to reach the top. He praises students like Chatur (Omi) who end up as conformists for becoming successful, portraying the likes
of the eventual winners.
INDIAN EDUCATION TODAY – WHAT SAYS 3 IDIOTS
3 IDIOTS belongs to everyone. On the whole, the fi lm has tremendous youth appeal and feel-good factor to work in a big way in delivering the underlying message to our social system. Idiot 1 – Education System: Which is mainly performance-oriented with its
focus on scoring high marks and too much of emphasis on examinations forcing students to learn by rote rather than encouraging depth understanding. In the fi lm Rancho (Aamir Khan) goes beyond the book to gain mastery. Idiot 2 – Teachers: Faculty-led fi xed curriculum based pedagogy where the teacher gives no room to the students to convey originality. Boman Irani as Viru Sahastrabuddhe portrays it. Idiot 3 – Parents: They pressurise children to take up courses according to their own choice rather than their child’s. In the fi lm the Quereshis and the poorer Rastogis portrays typical Indian parents.
THE EFFECT
In an elective course called ‘Learning What is Not Taught’ the faculty at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) decided to follow 3 Idiots, adopting the line of teaching
students to learn about life from beyond the textbooks and curriculum. According to media reports, Executive Director of Tata Sons Ltd R Gopalakrishnan, the lead faculty of LNWT says, “What the students learn in the classrooms is only the beginning of learning. The rest of the lessons are to be learnt from what life teaches them.” According to a report by Hindustan
Times, 3 Idiots also triggers attention in some institutions in Punjab. Some of the dialogues of Rancho and their purpose have been rephrased as remarks on answer sheets of postgraduate students in a Ludhiana college. “Education is the ultimate objective,” and “learning to apply
theoretical knowledge is essential” are some of those remarks. At a Government Primary School in Ludhiana, teacher Ravinder Kaur convinced her colleagues to contribute Rs 500 each to install audiovisual aids in the classroom. A.P. Singh, who teaches mathematics
at Malwa Central College of Education in Ludhiana, has started giving good marks to students who had reproduced what they had excerpted from textbooks acknowledging the students’ effort.
PERCEPTION AND REALITY
The indifferent assembly-line approach of our current education is not enabling students to cope up in the world and that is what the 3 idiots’ message says. Because education is always developing one’s mind and soul and not just only learning by rote, conveys the fi lm.
But there are winds from opposite direction as well. According to Sagarika Ghose, eminent columnist and journalist, the fi lm is perhaps a better refl ection of the vast number of engineering colleges mushrooming across India, which are indeed soul-less factories where real education is substituted for cramming. According to her, the fi lm establishes that
unless one is a naturally gifted scientifi c enius like Ranchordas Chanchad, there’s no point wasting time with your books. Then one is better off singing songs or becoming a wildlife photographer. “If we continue to lose our minds over fi lms like 3 Idiots, we will soon become
a nation of idiots and will have to hire foreign brains to do our thinking for us because we will be wallowing in hatred of the system and escapist pleasure. Do we want to bring up children on the notion that the education system is idiotic and deserves to be screwed?” argues Ghose
in her column. Criticisms are there that ‘Three Idiots’ encourages to throw away books and
whose central message is “the education system sucks”, “we learn nothing at our centres of excellence” and “teachers are unable to teach and only want to ruin students lives,” saying that the fi lm is dangerously juvenile. Of course, there is a need for reform. Of course, there is a need to urgently relieve the pressure and strain – The pressure that comes from the huge number of students applying for too few IITs, too few medical colleges and too few quality
universities and the diabolical teachers and emotionally blackmailing parents. herefore, there is a need to relook at our education system, ensure that parents do not pressurise children. But in the pursuit of educational reform, the standards of excellence should neither
be compromised upon nor should we engage in an escapist fantasy and convince ourselves that education does not matter. In the fi lm as depicted, Rancho was a genius. But in reality every student is not genius, there is no short cuts for them in excellence for higher education.
Everything said and done, there is no denying the fact that the Indian education system as it stands today does not adequately equip the students to ask “why – what – where – when?”. It
teaches students how to answer well but in today’s complex world, asking the rightquestions is of paramount importance. Given a problem, we can solve it very well but when it comes to identifying a problem, even students from premier institutes lag behind. The education system needs to correct that. Also, inline ith the fact “everyone is not a genius”, it is also equally true that “everyone does not need to get into an IIT”. There should be other rewarding avenues identifi ed for the masses who are “non-genius”. Meaningful vocational training coupled with an acceptance by the society which could only stem from dignity of labour
would go a long way in making the masses idolise idiots. This is particularly true for a country like India where the job market is unable to adequately reward even the highest degree in general education, a Ph.D.