Entire education system should be overhauled to match the fast pace of a changing world says Pitroda

Updated on: Friday, August 23, 2013

Sam Pitroda, adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on public information infrastructure and innovation, on Thursday iterated his concern over the quality of education, which he felt was still at its primitive stage, in India. During an interactive session organized by the Bhawanipur Education Society College, Pitroda said the entire education system should be overhauled to match the fast pace of a changing world.

"In education, we have lots of baggage of the past. We have created a system where everyone must go to school. The system, which serves its purpose for a few hundred years, will crash the world over because the system is disconnected from the need of the young," said Pitroda, the man behind the telecom revolution in India.

When asked if formal education was still relevant in the age of online courses and e-certificates, he said: "If I had a child today, I wouldn't send him to school."

The young minds were curious and came up with a gamut of queries - especially in the Gandhian context. Pitroda had been invited to deliberate on whether "Mahatma Gandhi is still relevant". Trinamool M P Dinesh Trivedi was the moderator. To a question from Trivedi on why Gandhi was lost in the minds of Indians, Pitroda replied: "It's because everyone is so money-minded these days. Richest people in the world are being listed, but nobody would think of enlisting the best human beings."

Pitroda delved more on the topic at length, saying: "Gandhi is a way of life. To me, you could be drinking Scotch, wear heels and still be a Gandhian. You don't need to take Gandhi in totality. All we need to do is practice his ways." One such practice, according to him, was the Right to Information (RTI). "All these things (RTI) will bring the truth in public domain and that is Gandhian," he said.

If Gandhi was the symbol of honesty and truth, the audience seemed painfully aware of the fact that today's politicians were far from being truthful. When someone suggested Pitroda to get some Gandhian - instead of Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi - to launch the portal on Gandhi (due in September), Pitroda assured him that many Gandhians would attend the launch.

It was clear that politicians and their corrupt ways continued to be a sore point with the audience. A roaring applause followed Dinesh Trividi's comments on the "my-baap" syndrome among "corrupt" politicians and "chamchagiri" being their only qualification. To this Pitroda said, "Can't say that only politicians are corrupt. We are also corrupt. We must change ourselves before changing others."

Entire education system should be overhauled to match the fast pace of a changing world says Pitroda

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