Friday, November 12, 2010

Brain Drain

How do we define Brain Drain? Well the educational pundits have been referring to the huge outflow of Indian Nationals going to other countries and helping their economies, their society, their education system etc. as Brain Drain. But isn't this a very selfish and political agenda based definition?

The primary reason that anyone looks at options abroad is OPPORTUNITY. We have the brightest minds in the country, agreed, but are we doing enough to help them able to achieve their potential. No wonder that a majority of IITians go on to MIT and CalTech to get degrees and then get the best jobs in the world. They simply cannot fulfill their calling with all the bureaucratic bullshit, reservations and what not. So why not let people realize their dreams and then if they love their country, trust them to give back. We should at least be supportive than just blame it on USA.

For me, the definition of Brain Drain is quite paradoxical. I feel that when you deprive a child from fully realising his/her potential, thats Brain Drain. Dumbing down the SSC syllabi and coming up with a moronic system which just adds 10% to your score and then calls it percentile, is just an example. I mean a person standing 1st cannot possibly have 104%. Its such an easy way out. Why can't schools grow a pair and actually try and toughen up the education to a level of a CBSE or an ICSE boardsl? Is it the dream of our founding fathers to ensure that there are enough number of sub standard bumbling graduates in the country so that we are at par with world averages of literacy? This just then becomes counter intuitive to India marketing itself as the next Super Power with the treasure trove of brilliant minds.

At some level I agree with the decision taken on rescinding "Deemed University" status. But then again we screwed it up with failing to make exceptions to those institutes that are actually doing well. "Education has become a Business" is the only thing people scream from the rooftops, but why is Business so bad? It drives the economy, creates opportunities, raises the level of competition. Penalise those institutions who are in it just for the moolah, but generalisation especially in a country so diverse is idiotic. This generalisation is a plague currently affecting the HRD ministry. I mean you made IITs, IIMs, IIScs, for the absolute best in the country and then you slapped them in the face with compulsory reservations for sub standard students. Hilarious. The issue is not having reservations, but it is about clipping the wings of the privileged in favor of non deserving underprivileged. We all know how easy it is to get a certificate of belonging to a non-creamy layer don't we?

So do we really lose or gain from our original definition of "Brain Drain" ???