Education or specialization??

The top three science institutes in India have urged the education minister that sepcialized science courses be scrapped and replaced with plain vanilla BSc courses.The reason for this,as per these institutes,is that going ahead with very narrow specializations right from one’s first year in college is detrimental to one’s learning,as he/she lacks the basic grounding that can be used to arrive at an informed decision regarding further specialization.They also opine that after having a three year grounding in basic sciences,one can,if he/she wishes,take up a very specialized course as the fourth added year of his/her BSc degree.


Firstly,this is a welcome move,because we Indians need to start taking the learning part of education more seriously than the “earning” one.In India,any degree with the word “IT” will sell.This is because regardless of course content,our first worry is “naukri lagega ki nahin?”.Infact,there is a diploma course in computers,that goes like”MS-CIT”,tailor made to make listeners believe that it is an “MSc” in “IT”.And it sells like cakes!!


And many more upcoming fields also induce the same magnetic effect.Any course with biotechnology in it would sell hot.Ditto with forensic sciences.That in turn has led to the mushrooming of hundreds of “specialized” science courses.


Now who typically is the target customer for these courses?Usually,it is the guy who could not get into engineering or medicine.Speaking of engineering,the same farce of “specialization” applies here too.Even before entering college,one needs to take up a seat that denotes a college AND a specialization.The result?Everyone wants to take up Computer Science as it seemingly carries the best promise of good employment opportunities.Eventually,people from all branches are seen in IT companies,who anyways train fresh recruits in line with their actual requirements.The question that remains is that isn’t a brilliant automobile engineer taken away from the country’s talent pool when a student perfectly fit for mechanical engineering takes up Computer Science for job opportunities that even mechanical engineering could have offered?


Any field of work can give a person employment,job satisfaction and a purposeful existence.What is required is good old dedication,not fancy specializations.It would be really nice if this message is propagated to the students and the government acts on this proposal along with exploring such options in other areas such as engineering.