Last month I was an invited guest in one of the well-known engineering colleges of Pune.  There I also interacted with about 40 to 50 students. I asked them about what they discuss with their friends and most of them said that they talked about exams, getting placement and other chit chat that most young students engage in.

None of them said they talked or discussed the general situation in the country or how it can be improved. The affairs of the country somehow never enter their vision field, and they hardly think about them. Also, no such discussion takes place in the classroom either, since their teachers focus mainly on giving exams and finishing the curriculum.

How to be a good citizen and help the country is therefore never in the vision field of the students or the teachers. Since they do not engage with the story of India, it is difficult for them to be attached to the country.  Thus, at every opportunity they want to leave India and go abroad. This seems to be the story of almost all the colleges and universities in India.

Engaging students with the India story 

For example, a couple of years ago I had given an Institute lecture at my alma mater IIT Kanpur.  After the lecture few students came to me and told me that in their 3-4 years’ stay in IIT Kanpur this was the first lecture they had attended where somebody talked about India and what students can do to make it great. Most of the other speakers talked about which company will give them better pay packets and compensation.

It is this disengagement from the story of India by youngsters and their teachers which is a troubling fact because if there is no discussion on this vital issue even in the premier Institutes then India cannot become better.

This is because the youngsters are the driving force of change anywhere in the world and India is no exception. When they are not engaged with the story and situation of India then there is no attachment to it and no desire to change its situation. Hence, they want to leave India at the first opportunity.

Social media is demotivating

And whatever information they get from the social media like WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. is very skewed and polarizing in nature and ends up creating fear and uncertainty in the young minds.  This further fuels the desire to leave the country.

 India exports the highest number of students in the world.  The opportunities of good higher education exist in India, but most students want to go out. The pressure to do so is both from their parents and their peers who constantly tell them that nothing is good in India and by going abroad they can make more money and improve their standard of living.

The whole education system in India is geared towards passing exams.  This is the result of increased curriculum load with excessive pressure on the teachers to cover the curriculum and test the students on it. There is never a desire to test their knowledge but just to test whether the material has been rote-learned.

We never make the studies enjoyable nor make the students learn the fundamentals of knowledge and how to find further information by searching it on the internet. We also never test the students to find out how this knowledge can be useful to them later on in their lives. This results in teaching students quite useless things and those too without imagination with the result that students become even more disenchanted with their studies. With the ready availability of smart phones and social media they are further distracted. This is exacerbated by strict orders of the government and school authorities to always pass the students. So, there is no incentive to learn.

And in most engineering colleges the students are taught very poorly so that they are hardly inspired in engineering and never shown how their knowledge can be used to improve their surroundings and their environment. There seems to be a disconnect between their curriculum and real-life problems. It could be one of the reasons why most students in premier engineering colleges like IITs opt for non-engineering careers.       

How to reverse this trend

One way is to have a continuous discussion in the schools and colleges on how each one of us can change our surroundings to produce a better and conducive environment.

When the students get this message continuously it will slowly seep into their vision field and will make them think about it. They are smart and intelligent and will think about ways of making a difference and finding solutions provided problems are pointed out to them and discussed.

In my innumerable interactions with intelligent students in premier Institutes, I have found that they accept challenges and if continuously bombarded with them they will find solutions to them. It is when teachers, peers and mentors do not challenge or inspire them, they look for other common denominators for inspiration – which is presently money only.    

Needed better teachers 

So, it is the duty of teachers to talk about ethics and better behavior in the classroom and not be fixated only on exams and curriculum.  The students should be continuously taught about what they can do to change their immediate surroundings for better. This will also help and motivate the students to start a dialogue on this subject with their friends.  

In every class students should be exposed to motivational lessons about the lives of great people who have excelled in different spheres and have shaped the destiny of this country. These inspirational stories will help inspire the students to do great things and dream to reach excellence.

This can be further helped by exposing the students to Indian Classics and the great spiritual traditions of ancient India. At the same time, they should also be exposed to the great writings and classics from all over the world.

Inspiring and engaging students

However, to inspire students about the story of India the teachers will have to try hard.  When most of the teachers are in the teaching profession for just making money, they do not have any desire to challenge or inspire the students.  Doing minimum teaching and finishing their work quota by simply conducting exams, quizzes and correcting them, is what most teachers do.  So, our biggest crisis is how to get good teachers and leaders.             

Teachers and leaders are not produced in a vacuum. They are either born or trained to teach. Our present Indian society has very little respect for teachers. Today in India teaching as a profession is generally looked down upon. Unless that changes, we will not get great people to teach.   Today in India the situation is such that when people do not get good jobs in industry or other trades, they go into teaching.  For most people it is just another job for making money.

One solution could be for schools and colleges to continuously invite people who have excelled in their profession and are attached to the story of India to talk with the students. These people can create a spark in their mind and inspire the youngsters and teachers to be attached to the story of India and do great work. I try to do this regularly by giving lectures in schools and colleges in different parts of India.

Only when all of us do our part in engaging the youngsters to the story of India the country will become great.

(The writer, an IIT and US-educated Indian engineer,  a 2022 Padma Shri award winner, is the Director, Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute, Phaltan, Maharashtra.  He can be reached at anilrajvanshi50@gmail.com/@anilraj24.bsky.social)