I had a history professor who attended Berkeley in the 60s. He recalled the instructional methods used by one of his own professors at Berkeley: He simply got up to the podium, opened a textbook, and started reading. There was no discussion or chances to ask questions. As I recall, he indicated that this was a method of lecturing that had its roots in European academia.
A question for HNers from India: With such a long history of sending students to British and American universities, are Anglo-American methods of teaching, research, mentoring, etc. transferred back to Indian universities by returnees who start academic careers?
transferred back to Indian universities by returnees who start academic careers?
Of course, they are. I went to a top-tier school in India for my masters degree and I'm now a graduate student at a well-known private university in the US. I would say there is very little difference in the quality of teaching between my Indian alma mater and my current university. The main advantage here seems to be an army of teaching assistants conducting office hours, "precepts" and such which probably help struggling students. But I think the in-class lectures, homework assignments and exams are of the same quality.
I also went to a second-tier private school for my undergraduate degree and that is where I experienced the sort of teaching the article talks about. I think, like most of India's other problems, it boils down to economics. I paid about about $1200 in total for my four year undergraduate degree. I believe the government supplemented some of this with a grant to private institutions for students who met a merit criterion. But my point is that this is very little money and you can see why it would be quite difficult to recruit and retain high quality teaching talent.
The top-tier institutions - the IITs, IISc, IISERs, ISI and so on - don't have great salaries but they make up for it with prestige, perks (on-campus housing, cheap food, discretionary financial awards) and research grants. But beyond the cream of the crop, unfortunately it isn't a rational economic decision to go into teaching in India. This isn't to say nobody does and I've had a few really great teachers even at my undergraduate school but I also realize that India is a poor country with no social safety net. I'm not going to judge anybody for choosing financial security over social service.
This. The main problem at Indian undergrad institutions is lack of good teachers. And that is because of poor pay. I went to a top colleges at one of the decent universities (a step below IIT / REC). I had exactly one great teacher who was passionate about his subjects. 10-15% were decent. But most of them were a joke. And my friends at other colleges under this university, too, had similar experiences.
Apart from good pay, another reason for having poor teachers is reservation / quota for teaching positions. So even if someone doesn't deserve to be teaching, one would be doing so just because of his/her caste.
Most of the US educated academicians who teach in India are normally at the IITs (engineering schools) and IIMs (management schools). The teaching styles of professors at these schools are identical to US schools, however their effectiveness is debatable. To be fair to them, they are usually ham-strung by institution-wide regulations such as a guideline that 80% of the grade be determined by a mid-term and a final (I know this is the case at IIT Kharagpur, not sure about the others). They are not as productive research wise because while the graduate students in the US are competent and (usually) smarter than undergraduates, the reverse is true at most Indian institutes (the smart guys go abroad). There is no room for mentoring because undergraduates have a heavy courseload (5-6 technical courses per semester) and the professors have a lot of administrative work apart from teaching.
I think your opinion is at least a decade old. Research-wise Indian institutions are moderately productive now and especially so if you count the research budgets they have to work with. There is a challenge in finding high-quality graduate students because of course the likes of MIT and Stanford have a lot more to offer. But this is no different from, say, the best undergrads at UMass going to MIT. My point is there are good students and good work does happen.
Part of the reason why the best students used to go abroad was because there were a lot more job opportunities in the US after a graduate degree. This is changing now with MSR India, Intel Research India, GE Research, TCS Research and so on becoming well-established labs in their own right. The job scenario for academic jobs in India is way better than it is in the US and a moderately competent candidate can easily get jobs now at an IIT/IISER/ISI.
As someone who is keenly following higher education in India, I think the state of higher education is better than ever and rapidly improving. An easy way of judging this is to look at where our students are ending up. The best undergrads in India today invariably end up at the best schools in the world. This wasn't true 30 years and there are many examples of really high quality IIT graduates who studied in mid-tier US schools. Even students from second-tier schools like, say CEG Guindy or NIT Surathkul, now end up at very very good universities. The situation is less good in the humanities and social sciences, which btw are struggling the world over, but some of the newer IITs have social science and humanities departments and some progress is being made [1].
> are Anglo-American methods [...] transferred back to Indian universities by returnees who start academic careers?
Of all the people I have come across, only two of them finished a session of post-doc in the west, and came back to India. One of them is at IISc, and I forgot where the other one is.
To answer your question: my impression is that Indian academics seldom continue their academics in India. Most Indians who have earned a name in my (secret) field continue as profs in the west, take on Indian and non-Indian students, and teach them all the same way.
It's interesting how fifty years is the difference between world leadership and backwardness. Do you know if the change in teaching style at Berkeley had anything to do with the Free Speech Movement student protests in the 1960s? The author of the original post says that a latent penchant for popular protest is Indian students' best asset, so that's a tantalizing connection.
Comments
I had a history professor who attended Berkeley in the 60s. He recalled the instructional methods used by one of his own professors at Berkeley: He simply got up to the podium, opened a textbook, and started reading. There was no discussion or chances to ask questions. As I recall, he indicated that this was a method of lecturing that had its roots in European academia.
A question for HNers from India: With such a long history of sending students to British and American universities, are Anglo-American methods of teaching, research, mentoring, etc. transferred back to Indian universities by returnees who start academic careers?
transferred back to Indian universities by returnees who start academic careers?
Of course, they are. I went to a top-tier school in India for my masters degree and I'm now a graduate student at a well-known private university in the US. I would say there is very little difference in the quality of teaching between my Indian alma mater and my current university. The main advantage here seems to be an army of teaching assistants conducting office hours, "precepts" and such which probably help struggling students. But I think the in-class lectures, homework assignments and exams are of the same quality.
I also went to a second-tier private school for my undergraduate degree and that is where I experienced the sort of teaching the article talks about. I think, like most of India's other problems, it boils down to economics. I paid about about $1200 in total for my four year undergraduate degree. I believe the government supplemented some of this with a grant to private institutions for students who met a merit criterion. But my point is that this is very little money and you can see why it would be quite difficult to recruit and retain high quality teaching talent.
The top-tier institutions - the IITs, IISc, IISERs, ISI and so on - don't have great salaries but they make up for it with prestige, perks (on-campus housing, cheap food, discretionary financial awards) and research grants. But beyond the cream of the crop, unfortunately it isn't a rational economic decision to go into teaching in India. This isn't to say nobody does and I've had a few really great teachers even at my undergraduate school but I also realize that India is a poor country with no social safety net. I'm not going to judge anybody for choosing financial security over social service.
This. The main problem at Indian undergrad institutions is lack of good teachers. And that is because of poor pay. I went to a top colleges at one of the decent universities (a step below IIT / REC). I had exactly one great teacher who was passionate about his subjects. 10-15% were decent. But most of them were a joke. And my friends at other colleges under this university, too, had similar experiences.
Apart from good pay, another reason for having poor teachers is reservation / quota for teaching positions. So even if someone doesn't deserve to be teaching, one would be doing so just because of his/her caste.
Most of the US educated academicians who teach in India are normally at the IITs (engineering schools) and IIMs (management schools). The teaching styles of professors at these schools are identical to US schools, however their effectiveness is debatable. To be fair to them, they are usually ham-strung by institution-wide regulations such as a guideline that 80% of the grade be determined by a mid-term and a final (I know this is the case at IIT Kharagpur, not sure about the others). They are not as productive research wise because while the graduate students in the US are competent and (usually) smarter than undergraduates, the reverse is true at most Indian institutes (the smart guys go abroad). There is no room for mentoring because undergraduates have a heavy courseload (5-6 technical courses per semester) and the professors have a lot of administrative work apart from teaching.
I think your opinion is at least a decade old. Research-wise Indian institutions are moderately productive now and especially so if you count the research budgets they have to work with. There is a challenge in finding high-quality graduate students because of course the likes of MIT and Stanford have a lot more to offer. But this is no different from, say, the best undergrads at UMass going to MIT. My point is there are good students and good work does happen.
Part of the reason why the best students used to go abroad was because there were a lot more job opportunities in the US after a graduate degree. This is changing now with MSR India, Intel Research India, GE Research, TCS Research and so on becoming well-established labs in their own right. The job scenario for academic jobs in India is way better than it is in the US and a moderately competent candidate can easily get jobs now at an IIT/IISER/ISI.
As someone who is keenly following higher education in India, I think the state of higher education is better than ever and rapidly improving. An easy way of judging this is to look at where our students are ending up. The best undergrads in India today invariably end up at the best schools in the world. This wasn't true 30 years and there are many examples of really high quality IIT graduates who studied in mid-tier US schools. Even students from second-tier schools like, say CEG Guindy or NIT Surathkul, now end up at very very good universities. The situation is less good in the humanities and social sciences, which btw are struggling the world over, but some of the newer IITs have social science and humanities departments and some progress is being made [1].
[1] http://nanopolitan.blogspot.com/2013/01/sukhdeo-thorat-on-so...
> are Anglo-American methods [...] transferred back to Indian universities by returnees who start academic careers?
Of all the people I have come across, only two of them finished a session of post-doc in the west, and came back to India. One of them is at IISc, and I forgot where the other one is.
To answer your question: my impression is that Indian academics seldom continue their academics in India. Most Indians who have earned a name in my (secret) field continue as profs in the west, take on Indian and non-Indian students, and teach them all the same way.
Perhaps MOOCs can save India.
Not really. Indian students dont want to learn, they want a degree to a get a job that has no correlation with their degree.
It's interesting how fifty years is the difference between world leadership and backwardness. Do you know if the change in teaching style at Berkeley had anything to do with the Free Speech Movement student protests in the 1960s? The author of the original post says that a latent penchant for popular protest is Indian students' best asset, so that's a tantalizing connection.