Scientific Orthodoxy in Indian Education
Indian scientists have been responsible for some of the greatest breakthroughs in STEM research. Around the 5th century CE, Aryabhatta introduced the concept of ‘Zero’ and scientifically explained natural phenomena like eclipses. Today there are various theories named after Indian scientists including the Chandrasekhar Limit, the Mahalanobis Distance, the Raman Effect, and the Raychaudhuri equation. However, these theories were first proposed more than fifty years ago. The Indian scientific culture is waning: innovation has declined and there is a lack of quality research. The primary reason behind this, as highlighted by the recent education reform, is the school education system.
Besides space-technology (ISRO) and nuclear energy research, India is struggling in all other sectors of scientific research and development. Indian scientists have the capability (many Indian origin scientists and mathematicians are at the forefront of research in their field); however, the Indian scientific culture is not the best fit for them. This is evident from the rapid emmigration which has continued since the turn of the 21st century. Indian society has almost disregarded the importance of pure sciences, and value engineering and medicine more. But society’s ideals are influenced by the education system. Therefore the educational system is the primary reason that the Indian scientific culture is deteriorating.
Under the education banner, a seemingly important factor plaguing Indian science is the lack of premier research institutions. There are more engineering and medical colleges in India than research colleges. There are 23 IITs, 25 IIITs and 13 AIIMS campuses all across India compared to 7 IISERs and one IISc campus. The highest ranked institute amongst these, IISc does not even feature in the 100 universities in the world. As a result, Indian scientific institutions fail to attract top PhD mentors. This lack of good mentorship for researchers results in low impact research. PhD candidates from Indian institutions are inferior compared to their international counterparts. However, the real issue is not only at the university level. Rather, the problem lies in the orthodoxy of the Indian education system, particularly at the school level.
The school education system has made students lose their ability to question. In the Argumentative Indian, Amartya Sen explores how heterodoxy has been a part of Indian culture since the Vedic age; however, the schooling system has squeezed all innovation, curiosity, and ingenuity out of the students. From an early age, students are taught to live by conventions and reprimanded for not adhering to established practices. They are appreciated for coloring within the lines and discouraged from breaking the established system by coloring outside them. In senior classes, the curriculum is dominated by rote memorization. Even in subjects like mathematics (particularly statistics and conical sections), students are rewarded for mugging up the formulae, because a question in the exam requires simply plugging in the given numbers in the formula. Students accept these results without question and without understanding the reason behind them, simply because they are being reinforced only to remember them. The person who asks questions like “why is sky blue ?” is ridiculed, because society has accepted the color of the sky as a fact. This positive punishment discourages the student from asking questions. Additionally, Indians tend not to question their superiors. The power distance index is a measure of how members of society accept a heterogeneous distribution of power in society. India scores a high 77 on this index, indicating an acceptance of unequal distribution of power in society. As a result, Indian students are less likely to question teachers, who are seen as authority figures. Even though early Indians were more argumentative, the acceptance of power in today’s Indian society could have been due to factors and subjugation of the population before and during the Colonial Era. An acceptance of heterogeneous power distribution and strict adherence to conventions is plaguing Indian science.
Besides such cultural barriers that exist in schools, the curriculum itself is outdated. Students are taught how to calculate coefficients, but not how to interpret them. Today, the mechanical processes that the students are expected to learn are stored in computers which can perform those same calculations in milliseconds. Essentially there are three steps to an experiment: input data, process, and interpretation of the output from the process. Before the silicon revolution, the process was the most challenging aspect of an experiment. As a result, an Indian education gave a big boost to (then) scientists. But, today when the process is almost out-sourced to a computer, the true genius of a scientist lies in their ability to question established results, and interpret the outputted data. The ease of experimentation in the technological revolution has seen an eruption in scholarship in science. With more research, one is expected to keep up by asking at least more questions. Future Indian scientists must learn how to use technology efficiently in our research and optimize our skill set to complement the computers. A computer cannot ask the questions and make interpretations, it is the responsibility of the scientist to do so. The Indian curriculum should therefore optimize itself to produce graduates who can respond to the needs of the future.
The biggest flaw in the curriculum is the rigidity towards preparing the student to clear “the exam.” With the curriculum being so exam-oriented — the fateful exam is in many cases the only path to college — students’ curiosity and spirit of enquiry is squashed by the emphasis that society lays on these exams. A student must study seven hours in school for an exam, go to tuition classes to study for three to four hours for another exam, and then self-study for all the exams that they are expected to appear for. The rigorous exam preparation does not allow students to learn beyond the syllabus and explore their passions. The intense competition and pressure to secure a rank reduces empathy. Empathy, as Satya Nadella puts across in Hit Refresh, is essential for invention. It is important to recognize that necessity in another person’s life and of society, in general, and ask questions. But even if a student asks the right question there is no place to do the experimentation. Schools are so curriculum focused that the labs in school can only be used for satisfying the practical component of the exam (not for independent experiments). Even the practical curriculum is flawed: rather asking students to design an experiment, students are asked to follow the written procedure in the name of experimentation. Performing these experiments, some of them first performed more than two hundred years ago, is a good starting point; however, the problem arises when students are not encouraged to build upon it. This is because the parameters for judging a candidate’s ability is established, and is not subject to change. In many cases, the exam-centric approach of a school is not to be blamed upon the particular institution. As a part of the system, the school must work to establish itself, which can be done by producing rank-holders in exams. As a result, the school is almost forced to enforce the rigid curriculum upon students. But, this rigidity is preventing innovation and scientific enquiry. As a result, the average Indian high school graduates may know how to use a tool, but not what to do with it.
The society that has been established by this education system is where the waning scientific culture resides. The stigma of modern Indian society, which was even highlighted in the movie 3 Idiots, is: a boy is destined from birth to be an engineer, and a girl is destined to become a doctor. Essentially, a new caste system has developed in Indian society with Doctors and Computer Engineers occupying the highest rungs, with scientists and artists occupying the lowest. Indian society’s preference is visible when the highest ranked students (in the Indian examination system, higher ranked students get priority to pick a major) almost always pick Computer Engineering, and the people with the lower rank have to “settle” for the pure sciences. According to society, the students who study pure sciences are destined to be professors, which is a profession which is looked down upon. Professors are the people who drive innovation by their own research and by preparing future researchers. By not giving them the respect they deserve, society does not allow professors to fit in who ultimately decide to leave for places where they are appreciated. This ignorance in society cycles back and affects the education system and discourages students from pursuing the sciences.
The system at the school level (starting from primary school to high school) goes on to harm the overall scientific culture of India. It is important to remove the orthodoxy in the education system, which would then go on to change society. The new school curriculum introduced by the government this year is a step in the right direction towards re-establishing India as a leader in scientific innovation and research.
