The making of a Scientist in India Vs. Developed Nations - An Ethmos Perspective.- PART I

We hope you have gone through our previous articles regarding research funding through banks and the quality of research in Bharat.  After giving much thought to the state of affairs at our research institutions and institutions of higher learning vis' a vis' developed nations, we got so frustrated that we decided to write something regarding how all these great achievements are accomplished by our research institutions.  So here goes:

First we will take a look at how things actually need to be done and are being done at the developed countries like the USA, UK, Germany, etc. which give utmost priority to original research and innovation.  A scientist is made right at the schooling stage in those countries.  Every child is a scientist - s/he likes to explore his surroundings and environment and learn through that process only.  This quality of children is nurtured right from the pre-schooling stages in the developed countries and the nurturing continues throughout the schooling and college education wherein lectures are not taken as class periods of 30-45 minutes and a monotone is sung by the teachers while the students doze off in harmonic motion every 5 to 10 minutes.  The children are given real-life projects, told to explore their environment, probe everything that they are curious about, read and study about new developments in the fields that they wish to choose as their profession.  In those countries, there are no "scientists" but biologist, chemist, entomologist (insect specialists), microbiologist, biochemist, physicist, mechanic, etc. and all professions are seen with more or less equal respect with the quality of living near about evenly distributed among the populace.  The students are encouraged to take up research projects right at the schooling stage and involve in original innovation and encouraged to share their ideas freely, thus resulting into a overall positive and open atmosphere where creative inventions are born.

Now we look at how great we are doing in our very own Bharatvarsh which invented ZERO and are still extremely good at multiplying zeroes (no pun intended).  Over here, our children are our biggest "investment" which have to be liquidated after they get a decent job (look after your parents) and of course, there are only THREE jobs in this whole spherical world - DOCTOR,  ENGINEER, and OTHERS.  And once your child is in school, he is not supposed to (1) ask curious questions that are out of syllabus and which the teacher has told that it won't come in the exams (2) not study foolish comics other than your textbooks (3) play around or fool around by doing stupid desi inventions like making a bow and arrow out of broom sticks {I personally used to love it!!!}.  And you are supposed to (1) attend school and tuitions and the number of tuitions required was derived using a simple formula wherein you multiply the number of subjects with one and multiply the answer with two to get get the number of study hours required after school hours (2) copy-paste whatever has been done in school class from a book called C.W. (Class Work) to H.W. (Home Work)  (3) make sure the teacher is always happy and is not irritated with questions she does not know or care to know the answers to and most important (4) DO NOT THINK ON YOUR OWN.

So, now our Bhartiya child comes into the most important phase of his educational life called the Higher Secondary Boards or class XII as we call it.  Now, apart from school + tuitions, he has to attend specialized coaching for the Olympics called PMT/PET with all its hues and colors from different states and also a common exam at the central level.  And IF, and it is a big IF, you don't clear it - It is definitely and absolutely the end of the world for everybody on this planet - so now you are the saviour of this planet and you have to do it for this planet's sake.  Our Bhartiya child has already succeeded in killing his enthusiasm, curiosity, innovation, creativity, and the beautiful but useless spark in his eyes.  And hence, definitely he fails to clear these dreaded exams and ends up being the biggest disappointment in his entire family history and will be talked about how he has ashamed his entire previous and forthcoming generations.  Since he is used to all these insults and crushings, he just accepts his fate and goes and joins a "normal" science college which is the ONLY other option left according to his genius multi-talented parents since the world does not require any lawyers, bankers, administrators, drivers, soldiers, cops, businessmen, or anything and the only two people they take help during their routine lives are the mighty engineer and the divinely doctor.

We will continue the story of our brilliant scientist in our next part since we don't want our readers to sleep away reading this interesting story.

Thanks and happy Ethmos to all.