One of things that irks me about people (read: Desi NRIs) wanting to stay back in America is they want to secure a better “education” for their children. This, coming from well educated NRIs holding good posts, mostly in Tech industry. Exactly what they mean by “better education” fails me; as I see it, you wouldn’t be here if you were not qualified anyways. And you gained that qualification by staying back and studying in India, thank you! Heck you wouldn’t even get admission in a good university or come here on a project if you were not qualified enough to do so.
I wonder why there is this bizarre fascination that western education is way better than Indian education is instilled upon them. And I am not talking college or graduate education here – I am talking education at root levels, from grade 1 to 12. Agreed, Education in India is a mess, but education out here is not doing great either – there’s a severe shortage of teachers in the country, schools are rarely safe, there is no uniformity in the way the kids are taught, drugs and sex are pretty much the norm in almost public schools. Good education, yeah right.
Instead of complaining about how good or bad education is in India or US, what people must take from it is the good parts of both the systems. For example, the overall grade system prevalent here is much better than all-or-nothing approach of our examination style. But by the same token, the content in Indian education system is way more developed and far reaching. One only needs to take a look at history and the knowledge most Indian kids have of the world vs kids in this country.
Educational reforms in our country are a must – but should the content be contested? I am not sure – I think we are doing fine there. What we need is a better system to evaluate students and their strengths and get out of the age old one exam policy. Other than that, I think our educational system is not as horrid as some desi NRIs would like to show off.