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ShareBangalore: The director the of reputed Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Padmanabhan Balaram, during a Rajyotsava extension lecture at the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) on Thursday said that inadequate standards of teaching were to blame for the poor quality of research coming out of Indian institutes.
"In contrast to large universities in the West which provide higher education on a broad base, in India we have smaller institutes catering to specialisation in certain fields. We need broad-based large universities to improve the quality of teaching," Balaram said.
The IISc director offered examples from the history of scientific discovery, showing how inventions that might have little application value at one time might yield much over the years. Explaining the importance of researching science, Balaram said, "It is so intricate a part of our life that climate change, ozone radiation and other problems affecting life are seen as problems created by science and technology (S&T). We even have a solution for these emerging from S&T."
Balaram took umbrage to the division of labour prevalent in Indian academia: "We form knowledge commissions and committees. The faculty is good at debating and discussing. Reports are written, and the solutions derived gather dust," he said.
"Research and teaching are two faces of the same coin. In India, we have separated these and thus face problems. Also, there is need for private philanthropy in education, as in the West. What we have, instead, is public-private partnership, which poses the threat of public funds running into private firms," he said.
