Jairam Ramesh addresses a seminar of the Prime Minister's Rural Development Fellow's Scheme

Updated on: Saturday, April 20, 2013

Union minister for rural development Jairam Ramesh on Friday started a controversy by attacking professional schools and renowned educational institutions where he said students are taught pride, disdain and contempt. Addressing a seminar of the Prime Minister's Rural Development Fellow's Scheme (PMRDFS), Jairam Ramesh told a gathering of young professionals to: Unlearn all the garbage that has been put into you in the professional schools.

In September 2011, the Union ministry of rural development selected 156 young professionals as fellows of the PMRDFS to work in 78 backward districts under an integrated action plan. The work of these young professionals, including MBAs and post graduates in social sciences, was to assist the district administration of backward districts across nine states in implementation of the Centre's rural schemes as development facilitators.

On Friday evening, Ramesh was speaking to these PMRDFS fellows working with the government. He said: The PMRDF scheme is an experiment, a leap in the dark. Whether we succeed or fail, at least we tried. While working with the government, even if you haven't changed the world, you would have changed yourselves. This is an opportunity to develop skills that are not taught in the universities. What you are taught in the universities and professional institutions is the belief that you the special and chosen one.'' He asked the PMRD fellows to forget all the disrespect for others and cultivate patience.

He said that some of the fellows who were from the business administration background would go back to the corporate world as frustrations are inevitable in public administration''. A large section of the fellows hold their academic post-graduation degrees from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Taking on the Institute, the Union minister said: It is my request to the Tata Institute of Social Sciences to teach less ideological terminologies and more managerial expertise. Because when I hear a 25-year-old say, 'We must look at the developmental paradigms', I begin to shake. Please do not contaminate young minds with such phrases.'' He also said that long hair and long beard don't make geniuses.

This is not the first time when The Union minister has challenged the traditions of educational institutions, Three year ago, on a Hot April afternoon Jairam Ramesh started a controversy when he threw away the convocation robe at a graduation ceremony at the Indian Institute of Forest Management here. Describing convocation robes as "medieval and barbaric", a sweating Jairam Ramesh wondered how we stuck to such barbaric colonial relics," winning a round of applause from students.

Jairam Ramesh addresses a seminar of the Prime Minister's Rural Development Fellow's Scheme

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