Rural-urban education divide

So much is written about rural-urban divide in India, that the subject has almost become cliched. But, inequalities are real and they really are a handicap for people born into rural areas.

For eg., rural students lack access to various facilities for competing in the prestigious competitive exams of the country. Not to mention the awareness levels in the first place. Urban students have a definite edge over their rural competitors because of the facilities they can avail of.

The format of Civil Services Exam takes into account that urban students can get coached for the exam. UPSC tries to frame questions such that no amount of training can help you unless you have certain natural skills like the ability to express yourself clearly and cogently, a natural awareness and curiosity in what's happening around you etc. In fact, the interview stage, clearly favoring the urban candidate was intentionally given less weight by a committee that looked into this issue. In spite of all these measures, the urban student has an advantage. In the end, we hope, that the right candidate based on merit is selected.

JEE, being a technical exam, does not offer much leeway in balancing the rural-urban divide. You can get a lot of help from coaching centers for this exam. And framing questions so that one doesn't need coaching centers reduces the quality of the exam.

The same is the case with CET of Tamil Nadu. But, the powers that be, are planning to scrap it, in favour of +1 and +2 exam scores. This definitely tilts the balance in favour of rural candidates. But, of course, +1 and +2 exam results are based on rote preparation, rather than a sharp understanding of fundamentals and therefore, does not measure merit.

In the future, technology hopefully will play a role in reducing rural-urban knowledge divide. Distance education is already very popular in India. I still remember quality UGC programs on DD. IGNOU with its distance education program is playing a great role in using modern methods of distance education. Through radio channels, audio-video softwares, it provides quality educational programs.

The first disadvantage of such a system is the lack of interaction between the teacher and the taught. And that's a big disadvantage. Hopefully, technology will provide cheap and accessible solutions to this too. On-demand televisions are catching up in India in a big way and this if applied to distance learning, can help bring flexibility in choosing the lectures. Schemes for cheap two-way communication between dedicated (in ways more than one!) teachers and students could further reduce the lack of interaction.

When it comes to schemes, we have a plethora of ideas from the political side. If we can give colour television sets to poor people as part of election bonanza, there is no reason why we can't give set-top boxes (for on-demand viewing) for candidates appearing for exams!

Marxian Materialism

Marxian philosophy seems very organized. His thoughts are arranged in order, assumptions and reasoning laid out.

One of the central ideas is that material world determines human ideas. It thus also determines ultimately, everything in society including values, beliefs, religion etc. This concept is diametrically opposite to Idealism or ideas determining material world. As in, I have an idea and I make something out of it.

To me this Marxian concept seems applicable in many cases. Take for example, the Delhi Metro. It's very existence has brought about a sense of urgency in every other city to look into mass transport systems. It's a kind of mental revolution brought about by the material possession. The Industrial Revolution, the Information Revolution are, ultimately, mental revolutions brought about by "material" revolutions.

Another interesting thought here: India had adopted reforms in 1991. These reforms were applied, naturally, to the material aspects of trade and production. But a change, a reform or a revolution, if you will, is yet to take place in the mental domains. Here I quote, "Prepare yourself to fight and incorporate a change: a real change, i.e., a change in YOU, in yourself and in your work culture, attitude and sense perception. The failure of this last resort would lead to our complete annihilation".