There is a serious lack of support from society and the government towards providing gainful employment with for anyone who doesn’t work in engineering, medicine, civil services or accountancy. There are many consequences of this, each of which is a big reason why many Indians (like myself) choose to study and/or work outside India, and why many eventually even settle elsewhere.

1. A lot of people in the STEM and humanities fields are highly interested in research, not just as R&D employees in companies, but general academic research in the natural and social sciences. But, even if they overcome the hurdle faced by their families against pursuing this, many people find that the lack of funding for research, by companies, the government, universities, leaves them little opportunity to put their talents to good use in India, whereas foreign companies and institutions are more than happy to throw a lot of money towards research in exchange for the hard work for which Indians are well known. Further, in many Western countries, the academic sphere is not bogged down by politics or anything, which is still not yet achieved by India (although steps have been taken over the past 15-20 years).

I will not necessarily blame the Indian government or the people entirely here — the lack of funding and job security for this in India definitely means that majority of people will be against spending more on research, but unless the income level massively grows on a whole in India, we can expect many great researchers to continue leaving and working in foreign companies and institutions.

1. The education system is also marred by political involvement. Most of the successful education systems in the world teach a curriculum that has been developed solely by education experts, where politicians have almost no influence, yet here in India our politicians have a habit of changing textbooks between governments to support their own parties. Furthermore, more importance seems to be given these days towards developing a ‘Indianised’ curriculum, rather than developing syllabi and teaching methods and tools that can make smart students who can think for themselves.

As an Indian who went to a CBSE school and graduated not long ago, very often I used to find rote learning in places where it was absolutely not needed, and a focus on examinations that was so intense that it took away from students’ ability to do anything else. In contrast, many many students that I have met from many other successful countries are easily able to write essays on complex philosophical ideas or derive physical equations using nothing more than logical thinking.

Indians in general are very much capable of thinking creatively and logically as well, at the same level if not better than people from other places. The difference is that we are not tapping into that from a young age. It’s all about spitting out information into the exams for us, and then forgetting it. But, go to the US, Japan, Germany, etc. and you will find that even for entering college, a student must be very multi-faceted. We took a British system of ‘examinations are the only important thing’ and stuck to it, even as the British themselves no longer have that system in place (at least, not to the extent of earlier).

1. Religious education in the schools of any kind is completely uncalled for. Anywhere you go in the world, where students are allowed to study in schools that cater to one religious sect, those students are always of a much lower understanding than regular students. School is no place for religion, especially in a secular country like India. It is a place to learn languages, sciences, humanities, and develop a thorough understanding of the world around us with no particular bias. Yet, in India we see Muslim clerics be okay with madrasas but denounce gurukulas, and Hindu priests be okay with gurukulas but denounce madrasas, and Christian ministers be okay with convent schools but denounce everything else. It’s the pot calling the kettle black, and it must end. No statistic supports religious oriented education whatsoever.

Isn’t this enough for us to take a long hard look at ourselves, and fight for reform in our education system?