Quick poll: Why the Indian education system sucks
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Thomas George wrote: But, if Stroustrup, Sutter, Meyers etc are your teachers :drool: Thomas George wrote: The lack of interest in students cannot be solved by changing higher education syllabus. Yes, but what about those students who are interested in learning whatever is in the syllabus very well (taking interest, not just for the exams), but nothing out of the syllabus? There seem to be a few people like this around, sitting on the fence. A syllabus change will pull them on to our side. More importantly, making the syllabus tuff will weed out the ones who study just 'cos their parents want them to/for the degree. Hey, you're from India, too- you must have seen lots of people of this type. Thomas George wrote: I graduated in Electronics and Communications Engineering from College of Engineering, Trivandrum. Nice to meet a fellow-Indian. :) Thomas George wrote: The best thing that happened to me there was that the teachers did not care what we did Ditto here X| , but some encouragement here would go a loooong way in improving everybody's skills- a snowball effect. And I'm curious to know what you voted. :-D Regards,
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. Never see a BSOD again - FREE! "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design.The problem with the Indian education system, IMO, are the following. They are not the same as you mentioned above. 1. No emphasis on problem-solving at school level: After writing essays that are memorized from text books for 10 years, many students find it difficult to change to a problem-solving mode. 2. Too much too early: I have not seen many changes in what is learned at say by 12th. But, there is a significant increase in what is learned in classes 1 to 4. IMO, this is a very bad practice. At such an early age, children should not be burdened with too much information. There is an emphasis on technical education these days, and everything else is not considered good enough. Someone with outstanding literary skills faces a lot of pressure to go into "professional courses" that would earn them a living. The students do it against their aptitude. Most people, who you say cannot write a 100 line C++ program cannot write, because they do not want to. They probably did not want to know what C++ is. The parental pressures push them to it. To me, these are larger social issues, because of lack of opportunity in the non-technical areas - something which the education system will not be able to address. Summary: Education system does not work well, because wrong people are in the system. The way these people come into the system is a larger social problem, and cannot be solved by trivial insignificant fiddling with course curiculum. So, I found that your suggestions would not evoke much interest in the currently un-interested. :-). My vote: 5 (A change the social reality that bring economic activity in literature, arts and other areas, so that there is a chance for people with aptitude and skills in those areas to make a living is the only way to ensure that the right people are in the right places. Now people don't follow their dreams. That, IMO, is the problem. IMO, It will not change, whatever you do to the education system) My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
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Vikram Punathambekar wrote: How old do you think you are - 50 I feel like 50, with so much work in the office! X| Take my advice, man. Cherish the time you have in School. These are gonna be the best time in life! Nick Seng (the programmer formerly known as Notorious SMC)
God, I pity me! - Phoncible P. Bone
Nick Seng wrote: I feel like 50 Your sig says it all. ;P Nick Seng wrote: Cherish the time you have in School. These are gonna be the best time in life! :rolleyes:
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. Never see a BSOD again - FREE! "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design. -
The problem with the Indian education system, IMO, are the following. They are not the same as you mentioned above. 1. No emphasis on problem-solving at school level: After writing essays that are memorized from text books for 10 years, many students find it difficult to change to a problem-solving mode. 2. Too much too early: I have not seen many changes in what is learned at say by 12th. But, there is a significant increase in what is learned in classes 1 to 4. IMO, this is a very bad practice. At such an early age, children should not be burdened with too much information. There is an emphasis on technical education these days, and everything else is not considered good enough. Someone with outstanding literary skills faces a lot of pressure to go into "professional courses" that would earn them a living. The students do it against their aptitude. Most people, who you say cannot write a 100 line C++ program cannot write, because they do not want to. They probably did not want to know what C++ is. The parental pressures push them to it. To me, these are larger social issues, because of lack of opportunity in the non-technical areas - something which the education system will not be able to address. Summary: Education system does not work well, because wrong people are in the system. The way these people come into the system is a larger social problem, and cannot be solved by trivial insignificant fiddling with course curiculum. So, I found that your suggestions would not evoke much interest in the currently un-interested. :-). My vote: 5 (A change the social reality that bring economic activity in literature, arts and other areas, so that there is a chance for people with aptitude and skills in those areas to make a living is the only way to ensure that the right people are in the right places. Now people don't follow their dreams. That, IMO, is the problem. IMO, It will not change, whatever you do to the education system) My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
Thomas George wrote: My vote: 5 :Bangs head against wall: But of course, it's your opinion. :) AS for the other stuff, I agree. Just 'cos I didn't mention the social stuff in my last post doesn't mean I don't consider those. I just focussed on the technical aspects. Thomas George wrote: Most people, who you say cannot write a 100 line C++ program cannot write, because they do not want to. They probably did not want to know what C++ is. The parental pressures push them to it. Isn't that what I said somewhere in this thread? :confused: Thomas George wrote: IMO, It will not change, whatever you do to the education system Sorry, I believe otherwise. Changing the education system will produce better engineers. Am I a hopeless optimist? BTW, did you read the posts by John-theKing in this thread? He's from Pak, and he makes quite a few good points. Where in the US are you? Regards,
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. Never see a BSOD again - FREE! "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design. -
Thomas George wrote: My vote: 5 :Bangs head against wall: But of course, it's your opinion. :) AS for the other stuff, I agree. Just 'cos I didn't mention the social stuff in my last post doesn't mean I don't consider those. I just focussed on the technical aspects. Thomas George wrote: Most people, who you say cannot write a 100 line C++ program cannot write, because they do not want to. They probably did not want to know what C++ is. The parental pressures push them to it. Isn't that what I said somewhere in this thread? :confused: Thomas George wrote: IMO, It will not change, whatever you do to the education system Sorry, I believe otherwise. Changing the education system will produce better engineers. Am I a hopeless optimist? BTW, did you read the posts by John-theKing in this thread? He's from Pak, and he makes quite a few good points. Where in the US are you? Regards,
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. Never see a BSOD again - FREE! "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design.Anwering your question, I am in NewYork. Coming back to our little discussion Changing the education system might produce better engineers. But, is that and should that be the goal of an education system? I see friends, who were natural artists doing wonderful stuff, write great stuff in school, and then fade away after 10th grade, because there is way too much pressure on them to do the technology stuff, for which they have neither the passion nor the aptitude. I know fellow students who scored 95% and above on language tests, but have problems with mathematics. Now, you ask those people to come in and do set theory, laplace and fourier transforms, calculus etc., and they feel like fish out of water. When I was in in 12th, one of my friends in school till 10th (he went to a different college for his pre-degree course) committed suicide because he could not live up to the expectations. The reasons for these pressures are purely economical. The software and technology industries in general attract foreign capital, and therefore get high paychecks. The parents know that under the current environment, technical education gets their children economically stable. So they push for it. The government policies (taxes, investment etc) are skewed to accomodate these and have very little help for the people in any other area. Why does software export revenue be treated differently? Would companies developing software stop doing it because the government charges a standard rate irrespective of the revenue source? In US, as Roger Wright pointed out before, a car mechanic makes 75 dollars an hour, and a very good computer professional makes 100 dollars an hour. In India, the economic reality has become so skewed that it reflects in the education system as well. Unless we all come up with solutions for this issue, what good will a few better engineers do to the country? IMO, people are too much involved playing politics that they are not interested in the real problems and solutions to it. and also, I believe that the education system works much better than most other systems there - so it is way below in my list for reforms. :-) My article on a reference-counted smart pointer that supports polymorphic objects and raw pointers
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Vikram Punathambekar wrote: It's just that women in India seem to better off than women in Pak from what I read everywhere and from your post. Well comparison b/w Indian woman and Pakistan woman can be entirely different and interesting debate. You said that as you "read everywhere" an India woman is better than Pakistan woman. Now let me tell you that in Pakistan army there is a SSG (Special Service group) commando group in which there is a division of special trained women commandos. There is currently no women SSG commando in India. Though for the first time India is also bringing women in SSGs. I can give you the report from "Times of India" in the evening when i reach home. Also in medical colleges of Pakistan there is 70% women representation of female students ( i'd expect same trend in India). You pointed out my words about women in my previous post. No i didn't mean what you taken the meaning. I mean that in South Asian society average fathers bring dolls for their daughters and Aeroplane for their sons. Take example of India where so many "young male citizens" daily going abroad for jobs. Women are also doing jobs abroad but their representation is low. Of course women can work much harder than a man but in South Asia primarily the head of a family is a man who is regarded responsible. I didn't mean anything else. Vikram Punathambekar wrote: He's well-known in Pak? Why not many Indian books/writers are popular. Indian publisher BPB is the distributor of Indian books in the region and this publisher is earning a lot from Pakistan Ahem! Indian books are available in local currency rates like 200 Rs or 300 Rs. The books of Microsoft Press are about 50$, which is too much in local currency. Vikram Punathambekar wrote: The only one which passes in my book is "Let Us C", which was my first C book There are other books like: "VC++ COM and beyond", "C FAQ" which are rare books indeed.
This is long, pl bear with me. The number of women in India (and Pak, USA, and just about every country in the world) is unquestionably lower than the number of men. I just said that [IMHO]the % of women seems to be greater in India than in Pak.[/IMHO] John-theKing wrote: Why not many Indian books/writers are popular. I thought it was just Bollywood movies. :-D Sadly, the reverse isn't true- we don't get to see Pakistani movies or books here. Maybe it is because the industry there does not have the glamor of Bollywood, but there must defenitely be good Paki movies- it's a shame we don't get to see them. People-to-people contact will go a looong way in promoting peace. John-theKing wrote: There are other books like: "VC++ COM and beyond", "C FAQ" which are rare books indeed. Haven't read them, but judging from his other books, he is X| . You yourself mentioned that he copies code from other books. I just purchased "Test your C skills" and it's SICK ! That ass**e doesn't know anything about the 32-bit world. To him, (and the others in my class and my staff), the Turbo C++ compiler is the C++ language. :mad: OT: Just an example. The idiot says having a structure declared as
struct s
{
int x;
char y;
};
struct s a={2,'A'};
struct s *p=&a;One way to do access
a.yusingpisp->y
The other is
*((char *)p+2);
My rants against this, including two mistakes in the code: #1. Why the f*** would he want to write obfuscated code like this (and confuse his readers)? Sure, I can understand it, but can everybody else? No. #2. He is assuming the size of
x, i.e., size ofintis 2. This shows a)the moron has never heard of thesizeofoperator b)he lives in the 16-bit world, worshipping the Turbo C++ compiler. X| #3. Granted- we are given the programming platform, 16-bit DOS (or 16-bit Windows). Still, he CANNOT assume thatxandyare adjacent to each other- the standard specifies they need not be. There are loads more like this, in all his books. OK, maybe I'm pedantic. I am very strict when it comes to writing code- everybody tells me that, and I acknowledge it. But he is teaching incorrect stuff to students. He has a fanatical following here (and in Pak, as you say. Who knows, maybe even in Nepal, BAN and Bhutan ! :rolleyes: ). People here respect what he -
Nick Seng wrote: I feel like 50 Your sig says it all. ;P Nick Seng wrote: Cherish the time you have in School. These are gonna be the best time in life! :rolleyes:
Vikram. ----------------------------- My site due for a massive update. Never see a BSOD again - FREE! "Do not give redundant error messages again and again." - A classmate of mine, while giving a class talk on error detection in compiler design.