Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Thursday, June 4, 2009
medical seats for sale
Headlines for past two days- seats for sale in Tamil Nadu medical colleges. Media highlights the scam, governments swing into action (or show of action)
Any well informed medical student, can tell you where all you can use money to buy seats. As donations, as management quota, and sometimes as high fees. The phenomenon is not new and not uncommon. Lakhs of students study hard year over year to become a doctors, and our system only adds to their hardships. The no. of medical seats is low, half of them are reserved and then there is this unfair advantage to the rich. Definitely demotivating.
Now our system (government-media-other power centers) will pretend to solve the problem by addressing these individual cases. 'Pretend' because most of them are beneficiaries of the business, and the history of their modus-operandi (set up inquiry commissions to dampen things first, and later forget it all) makes us all hopeless. Some good Samaritans shall go further by asking for legislation against such practices.
*
The real, workable solution is much simpler. Encourage private participation (investments) in medical education. Try public-private partnerships. Lower the entry barriers. Strengthen regulations to improve quality, but don't lay obstacles. Simply put, if Mr X wants to impart quality medical education with the aim of making money, allow him to do it.
The demand supply gap in medical education is huge, so seat-for-donation-quacks find buyers. Let the supply build, prices shall fall, people will have cheaper and better alternatives, and the market for the dishonest business shall die. Look at engineering education - its hard to find colleges asking similar donations. You might argue that setting up a medical college is far complex a job and needs far better expertise. My answer - do NOT underestimate the Indian entrepreneur. Just make him comply to quality, and even if that is tough, leave it to market too. The medical-education provider with better quality of learning, and reasonable pricing shall only survive.
*
And there shall be another beneficiary to this - the Indian poor man.
(Remember there is just one doctor per 1700 people here, while the WHO recommends it to be 1:1000 in developing countries.)
Any well informed medical student, can tell you where all you can use money to buy seats. As donations, as management quota, and sometimes as high fees. The phenomenon is not new and not uncommon. Lakhs of students study hard year over year to become a doctors, and our system only adds to their hardships. The no. of medical seats is low, half of them are reserved and then there is this unfair advantage to the rich. Definitely demotivating.
Now our system (government-media-other power centers) will pretend to solve the problem by addressing these individual cases. 'Pretend' because most of them are beneficiaries of the business, and the history of their modus-operandi (set up inquiry commissions to dampen things first, and later forget it all) makes us all hopeless. Some good Samaritans shall go further by asking for legislation against such practices.
*
The real, workable solution is much simpler. Encourage private participation (investments) in medical education. Try public-private partnerships. Lower the entry barriers. Strengthen regulations to improve quality, but don't lay obstacles. Simply put, if Mr X wants to impart quality medical education with the aim of making money, allow him to do it.
The demand supply gap in medical education is huge, so seat-for-donation-quacks find buyers. Let the supply build, prices shall fall, people will have cheaper and better alternatives, and the market for the dishonest business shall die. Look at engineering education - its hard to find colleges asking similar donations. You might argue that setting up a medical college is far complex a job and needs far better expertise. My answer - do NOT underestimate the Indian entrepreneur. Just make him comply to quality, and even if that is tough, leave it to market too. The medical-education provider with better quality of learning, and reasonable pricing shall only survive.
*
And there shall be another beneficiary to this - the Indian poor man.
(Remember there is just one doctor per 1700 people here, while the WHO recommends it to be 1:1000 in developing countries.)
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Getting involved
Getting involved is the concept of citizens participating in social-governmental processes on a part time basis for the benefit of the society .
In India, such a concept is really lacking, and to an extent that even such an expectation generates sharp disagreements. The only instance I can give of such a thing being implemented is the rule that medical students should be doing internships in villages as a part of their curriculum. Not surprisingly, it was received with sufficient angst and negativity from the students. Apart from other reason that they gave, the most understandable is "why only us?"
That gives us the idea of "yes, why only them, why not other students too". Broadening this further, why just the students, why not everybody else (who is educated and capable). Sure everyone's skills might not be as badly needed as a doctor's skill, still there is no dearth of work for educated young men and women in the country.
So what I suggest is, every educated citizen of the country spend some time doing government duty. And every graduate student does this duty as a part of his curriculum. Time can be anything convenient - 15 days, 30 days, 20 weekends - anything. The benefits shall come back to us as a society. Below are listed problem areas in which the benefits can be clearly seen.
- Lack of teachers: Rural India lacks lacks trained teachers. The deficit can be hugely filled by short (may be monthly/fortnightly) teaching internships by all graduate students in villages/small towns.
- Lack of experts/professionals in rural India: doctors, lawyers, computer trainers, business managers, are examples of professionals that can be utilized for specialized needs. Other ideas to improve the health care in India.
- Election duty: till now this is a nightmare only for government employees. Private citizens are not asked to contribute to maintain fairness. But with changed times, a stronger election commission and use of technology, a fair election is not just dependent on the election officers' honesty. Imagine how smooth and cheap the whole democratic process would become if there were more hands to share the burden.
- Courts: The Indian judicial system is almost crumbling under the pressure of the huge volume of cases it has to handle. We can lend a helping hand by providing non-expert manpower support (as we all don't qualify to be judges or lawyers). But a more important contribution is jury duty.
Jury duty -
Instead of having just one judge decide the case, have a jury of say dozen people. Let them sit through the entire hearing process and listen. And then, ask them to decide, along with the judge. Let the judge hold the veto, so no illiterate judgments can pass. This is a practice in many countries (like US) and was in India until a bad instance had it stopped. I see two big benefits of this. One, making corruption costly - its now 13 times costlier to have it decided in your favor by bribing. Two, education - it will create a vast pool of 'legally literate' individuals who can be used as judges when they become sufficiently qualified.
*
The most important condition for any of these ideas to work is having a system of stakes and incentives in place. If people are forced to do it, they find corrupt ways to get away. For example, if I have chances to become a judge one day by doing consistent and sincere jury duty, I might be very interested to do it, and do it well. But the idea is not purely about incentives. It is about people getting involved to make things better.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
fixing education-3
Observations and review (cont)
This is a short critical review of higher education in India. Higher education includes graduate and higher studies. This comprises of the simple, obvious and mostly useless (career wise) science and arts studies, and professional studies like engineering and medical. The scenario works differently for both.
First the non-professional higher studies. You pass 10+2, so the next step is to go for graduation (if you are not too poor, otherwise you would be a laborer by now). Till now, the education has been unable to give you any significant livelihood earning skills. So you choose any college in close vicinity, and any course that remains trouble free. So it could be commerce, sociology, maths, botany, whatever. You don't expect to get any career out of this course, and a slow-decent pace of study, may be with some coaching, takes you through. After graduation, you start applying for various government sector jobs, and for higher studies. As the former doesn't exist much now, and needs a big bribe, a post-graduation is a good option. If its professional (MBA/MTech/MCA) a career can be hoped. If not, you go into research-teaching, or something else (which can include an unrelated job/business, or preparing for competitive exams for government jobs)
Professional education. If you have enough awareness (or enough money), you could work hard to earn a ticket to short cut routes to great careers. After 10+2, you could secure admission to a good (so called) engineering or a medical college. After graduation, you could go for something like a CAT entrance or the UPSC exam. Shortcuts to glory-career- and everything else you don't need. Most boys and girls who have the awareness, make the brave choice of trying for the shortcuts. In some regions of the country, taking multiple year drops for them is also popular.
Higher education is a bit less unequal than primary and secondary. Merit and hard-work works to some extent, though you can have a unfair advantage if you are rich or belong to reserved category. Professional education works event better. Engineering and MBA work best, because of an activity called 'campus recruitment'. IITs and IIMs are the best among the bests, and that is arguably, only because they have at their disposal, a huge talent pool fighting for admissions.
The one that works best is professional education, from a decent institute. But the problem is the huge demand supply gap (-a hundred competitors per seat is common) and is mostly too expensive for the average Indian (who earns the per-capita income, 30k right now)
The next parts talk about the wish-list and practical solutions.
This is a short critical review of higher education in India. Higher education includes graduate and higher studies. This comprises of the simple, obvious and mostly useless (career wise) science and arts studies, and professional studies like engineering and medical. The scenario works differently for both.
First the non-professional higher studies. You pass 10+2, so the next step is to go for graduation (if you are not too poor, otherwise you would be a laborer by now). Till now, the education has been unable to give you any significant livelihood earning skills. So you choose any college in close vicinity, and any course that remains trouble free. So it could be commerce, sociology, maths, botany, whatever. You don't expect to get any career out of this course, and a slow-decent pace of study, may be with some coaching, takes you through. After graduation, you start applying for various government sector jobs, and for higher studies. As the former doesn't exist much now, and needs a big bribe, a post-graduation is a good option. If its professional (MBA/MTech/MCA) a career can be hoped. If not, you go into research-teaching, or something else (which can include an unrelated job/business, or preparing for competitive exams for government jobs)
Professional education. If you have enough awareness (or enough money), you could work hard to earn a ticket to short cut routes to great careers. After 10+2, you could secure admission to a good (so called) engineering or a medical college. After graduation, you could go for something like a CAT entrance or the UPSC exam. Shortcuts to glory-career- and everything else you don't need. Most boys and girls who have the awareness, make the brave choice of trying for the shortcuts. In some regions of the country, taking multiple year drops for them is also popular.
Higher education is a bit less unequal than primary and secondary. Merit and hard-work works to some extent, though you can have a unfair advantage if you are rich or belong to reserved category. Professional education works event better. Engineering and MBA work best, because of an activity called 'campus recruitment'. IITs and IIMs are the best among the bests, and that is arguably, only because they have at their disposal, a huge talent pool fighting for admissions.
The one that works best is professional education, from a decent institute. But the problem is the huge demand supply gap (-a hundred competitors per seat is common) and is mostly too expensive for the average Indian (who earns the per-capita income, 30k right now)
The next parts talk about the wish-list and practical solutions.
Friday, April 10, 2009
being unelectable
Nandan Nilekani thinks he is 'unelectable' (Imagining India, page 3). So do most of the educated-corporatized-professional-elite-decent men in the country.
Why so?
A look into what comprises the 'electable' might reveal. The following lot takes a plunge into politics,
- Son / daughter of a political biggie.
- Descendant of some erstwhile royal family.
- People who chose politics as a 'career', mostly after having earned enough through corrupt businesses to invest in the 'career'
- People with proven musclemen-leadership skills - goonda commanders.
The first two kinds have the natural advantage of easily acquired visibility, and existing organizations at work. But the other two are better contenders. They know the tricks of all trades, know how to get it done. If money buys them party tickets, money can make the rest easy. But they lack good reputation, and charm, and formal-communication skills, and media attention, and proper agenda, and more often, intelligence.
You have money. You have some visibility. You are intelligent. You know how to compete. What's the problem then?
You are ignorant. You are the rich guy of this country who thinks the problem of this country is the bad road that gives you a bumpy ride when you travel from your air-conditioned home to your air-conditioned office in your air-conditioned car.
You are indifferent. This country's system never expects you to get involved. And you never get involved.
You are wrong. You are actually NOT unelectable. Give it a try. You can win. You can figure out how.
*
Second thoughts -
The problems I stated above, no 1 and no 2, are a little too harsh and somewhat unfair to Nandan Nilekani. The intent is not actually to criticize Nandan himself, for whom the comments may actually be completely wrong. It is about the previously mentioned educated-corporatized-professional-elite-decent men of our country.
Elections have ended, and all such men (and women), who tried contesting and getting involved, have lost. What is the reason and what does this indicate ? Among others, the obvious looking 'the public resentment against politicians is on a high, and we urgently need alternatives' theory propagated mostly by media, has to face scrutiny. This belief, however true or false, can not be taken to infer that the alternatives (however good) shall find it easy to gain credibility among the voter masses.
Why so?
A look into what comprises the 'electable' might reveal. The following lot takes a plunge into politics,
- Son / daughter of a political biggie.
- Descendant of some erstwhile royal family.
- People who chose politics as a 'career', mostly after having earned enough through corrupt businesses to invest in the 'career'
- People with proven musclemen-leadership skills - goonda commanders.
The first two kinds have the natural advantage of easily acquired visibility, and existing organizations at work. But the other two are better contenders. They know the tricks of all trades, know how to get it done. If money buys them party tickets, money can make the rest easy. But they lack good reputation, and charm, and formal-communication skills, and media attention, and proper agenda, and more often, intelligence.
You have money. You have some visibility. You are intelligent. You know how to compete. What's the problem then?
You are ignorant. You are the rich guy of this country who thinks the problem of this country is the bad road that gives you a bumpy ride when you travel from your air-conditioned home to your air-conditioned office in your air-conditioned car.
You are indifferent. This country's system never expects you to get involved. And you never get involved.
You are wrong. You are actually NOT unelectable. Give it a try. You can win. You can figure out how.
*
Second thoughts -
The problems I stated above, no 1 and no 2, are a little too harsh and somewhat unfair to Nandan Nilekani. The intent is not actually to criticize Nandan himself, for whom the comments may actually be completely wrong. It is about the previously mentioned educated-corporatized-professional-elite-decent men of our country.
Elections have ended, and all such men (and women), who tried contesting and getting involved, have lost. What is the reason and what does this indicate ? Among others, the obvious looking 'the public resentment against politicians is on a high, and we urgently need alternatives' theory propagated mostly by media, has to face scrutiny. This belief, however true or false, can not be taken to infer that the alternatives (however good) shall find it easy to gain credibility among the voter masses.
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