‘Promote engg at your own cost’

In order to establish world-class educational system, India will have to follow the footsteps of Singapore and Finland, instead of aping the system followed by the US. This was the advice imparted by educationist Howard Gardner at an event in the city on Friday.
He was at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore, as part of the three-week Howard Gardner India Tour. While talking about the educational system in India, Gardner said that it is quite similar to the one prevalent in the US. “There is disparity between the kind of education received by the rich and the poor in both these countries. However, the system followed by Singapore and Finland is more evenly spread among all economic classes and that is what should be achieved. In India as in the US, the rich can afford better schools, they can hire coaches and have access to better facilities,” he said.
Gardner also dispelled any notion that a person’s caste or creed plays a role in how intelligent they ultimately are, citing that this belief exists in some parts in India. “I publicly went and denounced a programme that was designed in Australia revolving around the multiple intelligence theory, but also highlighted racial differences. The people who designed the programme had the best intentions at heart, I’m sure, but it was scrapped,” he added.
He also spoke about how schools in the country should not be focussing on preparing students to be ready for the requirements of the job industry. “Schools should be focused on teaching them. Let the professionals teach them to be professional,” he added.
Engineer overload
If India isn’t careful, then the country may have a problem of having too many engineers. “I saw a similar problem in Brazil about 20 years ago. No profession should be valorised over the other. You never know what sort of a professional skill will be required in the next 25 years,” he said. “Who knows what is going to be needed in the next 25 years?” Gardner is regarded as one of the foremost education intellectuals and is a professor of cognition and education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is also renowned for having coined the Multiple Intelligence theory.