India's Primary Duty

Re: # 7, 6, 5, 2

Skeptical, gorki, Malik sahab and Riaz sahab -- thanks for your comments. Let's hope something changes soon. I also have some ideas on how India and Pakistan can cooperate in this endeavour. But that'll be a whole other article :)

Re: # 11

Subhash sahab, would love to hear your views on this.

Rs.1.5 crores! - for a PG seat in Radiology! 1.5 followed by seven zeroes!
Rs.1.3 crores! - for a PG seat in Orthopaedics!

Imagine! Can YOU pay Rs. 20000 Every single Day for FULL three years to get a post graduate degree? Are you out of your mind?

And - Is it REALLY worth the price? This is After your already spending princely sums of money and valuable time, for MBBS!

Where did things go so horribly wrong, and who are the anti-nationals, ruthlessly gaining from this?
WHY do we Indians still have to manage with a pathetic doctor-population ratio of 1:1800, ( 1 : 400 in the UK and 1 : 300 in Germany)? Why do we not even THINK of training more doctors for unforeseen natural calamities like a swine flu or a mass casualty?

ANTICIPATED DOCTOR SHORTAGE :

A DEVELOPING India in 2025, is going to require vastly more doctors - because Indian doctors will also be attracted by the massive shortage that is predicted in the developed countries ( underline )!

India is also projected to be the future diabetic capital of the world, not to mention TB, HIV, heart disease and a variety of other disease!

REASONS FOR SHORTAGE IN INDIA :

Historically, strikes by medical students in the 70's and 80's against increasing medical seats, coupled with the government lifting the ban on Indian doctors working abroad, guaranteed the huge shortage of doctors.

This acute shortage lead, in the 90's, to a huge premium for seats in the available 'private' medical colleges. This coincided with allegations of huge sums of corruption money to the Medical Council of India ( MCI ), responsible for granting recognition to private colleges. While whole districts go without even a single specialist!

In 1994, the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) predicted a SURPLUS of 165,000 doctors by 2000. This turned out not only to be a bad prediction, but probably intended to protect the careers of the existing doctors. Unless more medical students begin training soon, the supply of physicians will begin to shrink in about 10 years when doctors from the baby boom generation retire in large numbers.

And these doctors will be from those scarce ones trainedfrom Indian private medical colleges.

DOCTOR-PRIVATE COLLEGE-MCI PROTECTIONIST NEXUS/MAFIA :

For Indians, becoming a doctor ( or any other training ) is a means to get a fortune, rather than a profession. While a doctor in the west may earn 2 or 3 times the Per Capita Income of his country, an Indian doctor expects to earn 100 times the PCI!

Look at private medical colleges - Most of them (unethically) manipulate figures of infrastructure and patients in order to gain points for recognition.

SRM College ( private ) / Out patients : 1,000 PD / 16 MS ortho seats / 1.5 C per seat,
General Hospital ( govt.) / Out patients : 12,000 PD / 3 MS ortho seats/ 1 L per seat

These figures can be interpreted in either of these TWO ways :

1. The chances of getting a seat in a private medical college is far in excess of getting one in a government college ( with vastly better infrastructure )

2. The government colleges are deliberately not being allocated more seats, since that will harm the prospect of the MCI making money.

The MCI also discourages Dip.N.B courses, since that too harms its earning potential. The chief of the corrupt MCI, of two decades, called Ketan Desai, is worth 2000 crores already! While politicians PROMISE medical colleges in every district, 99% of this is NOT converted to REALITY because of this obstructionist body called MCI. Most district hospital infrastructure is not used to provide any training.

COMPARE this with the situation in western countries, where PG courses are available EVEN in their district hospitals ( where the clinical material is hardly good in comparison with those in our government hospitals).

GENDER INEQUALITY IN MEDICAL EDUCATION ( AS WITH OTHER JOBS ) :

There is a huge gender bias here, as everywhere else. The number of female medical graduates today far exceeds the fertile imagination of any androphobic of 10 years ago! For almost 2 out of 3 medical seats are taken by females in the western world today! Much of this bias is defended on the illogical ground that it 'takes a woman doctor to treat a woman!' Unless males wake up to this bias, ( along with the way society is structured against them ), this will not change!

This is in keeping with the male-phobic trends in society, relegating men to menial jobs, while staking claim on managerial jobs. The justification is a grudge against males for the progress they have made as a gender.

http://timesofindia....icleshow/4912815.cms
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8077083.stm
( WAKE UP, MALE DOCTORS! SPEAK UP! )

The poor educational infrastructure is not limited to medicine alone. For example, even though it takes just a few months to train a pilot, most Indian pilots demand a pay far in excess of one lakh a month.

What has gone wrong with our education system as a WHOLE? Will the government sit up and take notice?

Dear Ahmad

You said
"Piousness or political correctness does not mean they are crrect".

What an excellent point?

Is it true in the case of Prophet ( pbuhahc )?

Thanks

Go NRO Go!

I am altaf pai from London via Karachi via Agra.:))

source of this evil is high population density....
I see Govt. spending on eudcation and health infrastructure increasing...but the gap (required and available) is widening day by day....
The primray duty should have been to check population explotion 30 years back....Rest would have been taken care....

Re: # 13 Nobdy is talking of killing people for they are not animals like other animals are killed for survival in modern upkeeping of heards.
We are talking of like China controlling population for better of majority. Which is quite human than degrading poverty and miserable existaence in Karachi or Delhi. You know people people do not like laws , like drug addicts but police state reduces their freedom and catches them. It deocratic decision or people are not allowed to kill themselves same way irresponsible should not be allowed to breed like rats and when they have no means. For equality even people who can be better parents are not allowed as that will be aginst equality.
We all parise China with Hoarse voice , something good will come to follow them for human conditions.

Ahmedmadani saheb, try to look at it this way(talking about India only): There are distinctly two or more India's - one is affluent, middle or upper class India, for which more children means less opportunities. Another India is the one living in slums/shantytowns, the India of rag-pickers and rickshaw-pullers and housemaids and so on, for which more children means more rags picked or more rickshaws pulled. Both these India's do not see eye to eye. You and me have same opinion but alas, "they" don't. So what do you do, kill them or what?

correction #11 - India's school education.

I am so happy to see someone talking about India's schhol education. This nearly echoes my own sentiments that I expressed in my post to one article on this very website.

I have thought of a model for primary and secondary education (not that I am given to philosophising much, but I was deeply anguished at the sorry state of my own children's education). I hope I will be able to discuss my thoughts with you, if you don't mind receiving unsolicited advice.

Re: # 9 80% growth= 80% of pakistani growth rate, average pakistani women get children younger and about 6 to 7 in rural areas which 48% of total populatin)

Re: # 6 Gorki..... I am not against anybody. I am not intelliget or certified like many of you but not foolish. This is not way to address problems. Government can not do any thing so no point in name calling. All certified people no some thing has not worked do not try to do same. I do not know how many indians are added. Must be 20 to 30 millions per year if i project assuming 80% growth of pakistan. That is more than one australia of Canada approximately. Just number is not good , number reduction is needed. All rational calculations you work how much your country can just produce to feed ( no we do not consider sanitation as problem in india) , they can get aid from usa and UN but how they can get water.
The problem is mathematical, limited lands, water what is sustainable number of population, the quality of life is going down for poor people. Now if you want to solve problem lokk waht is problem go to source and you will have to go against current to reach that high numbers. I do not believe in miracles. thngs will go down, present is not very good but in future today will appaer golden days as that population number will crush everything.
I wish good luck to all do gooders. People who help poor oes not mean they know right way. Piousness or political correctness does not mean they are crrect.
Good day. Sorry if i hurt any body . But ts hard to accept mindless illogical remedies.

Rakesh:

Primary education in India has been close to my heart. It is a community effort not government. I have seen first hand how little things make big difference.

Over 40 years ago my mother had took over a vacant plot behind Lutyen’s Bangalows in New Delhi to provide a place for kids of servants and drivers to big and powerful. This school still runs my mother retired a long time ago, one sister retired two years ago after running it and the last of my family’s involvement will end when my younger sister retires next year. The school has been teaching 800 kids each year up to 8th grade for 5% of the expenses of $500 per month the rest it receives from Delhi government. I have seen and heard from my mother and then from my sisters the difference it had made in the lives of who studied there. This kid of a poor Muslim family whose father was a driver for some minister, went to this school and onto become a successful chartered accountant. Such stories do not stop at him. Most do not reach there. My sister tell me that the new generation of parents want their kids to go to a better school and not to the one run in tents, as this is still done. Dreams too have evolved.

The biggest challenge had been to keep these kids at the school. One of the things my mother did was tied up with Christian Brothers’ charities that would come daily to give free food and milk. One meal was such an important factor in allowing parents to let kids stay at the school. School dropout rate was almost zero, because for parents alternative was expenses for another meal. It is unbelievable how small things make such a large difference.

Rakesh,
Very insightful and inspirational.

Under Musharraf, Pakistan followed India's lead by focusing on higher education with the higher ed budget rising 10-15 fold in a short period of time.

Unfortunately, there was no commensurate increase or focus on primary education...particularly public primary education is in shambles with insufficient funds, rampant corruption and ghost schools that exist only paper with fictitious staff drawing salaries and perks.

This lack of focus on primary education has resulted in the proliferation of madrassahs, some of them highly radicalized, that offer one-stop shop for poor children needing food, clothing, shelter and education. Parent simply drop their children off at these places and essentially let them raise their children, and brainwash them in some cases.

Pakistan is now paying a heavy price for years of neglect.

Upon the urging of saner elements elements in Pakistan, and pressure from the alarmed world, a new education policy was recently announced that will more than double education spending in Pakistan from about 3% of the GDP to 7%. If it is done correctly, instills proper values, and with transparency, then there will be light be at end of the tunnel for Pakistan's younger generation.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Rakesh
You have made some excellent points.
Ensuring a good quality education, freedom from hunger and decent healthcare for all are an absolute requirement and should by far be our first and foremost priority, not only from a moral but even more so from an economic and security standpoint.

You have hightlighted the critical weaknessess in terms of both the quantity and quality of our education delivery system.
I hope someone is listening.
My suggestion is that you write your views from the trenches directly to someone who cares but is also influential enough to make a difference.
There seem to be several people in the central cabinet right now who may be in a position to make a difference. (For example Shashi Tharoor is someone like you who left promise of other promising jobs to come to India to try to make a difference.)

And Ahmedmadani Sahib, I think you don't know much about the author, Rakesh Mani, who it seems is too humble to say anything about himself.
From his previous post I know that he is an extremely well educated young man who graduated out of an American University but decided to postpone a promising career elswhere to take time off to teach school in an underserved area in India.

We cannot commend his idealism and his efforts enough.
Kindly cut him some slack in your remarks. ;-)

Regards

Rakesh Mani
I envy your zeal and participation. With participation one gets real insight. The problem with primary education is a serious one. With English language becoming so encompassing in sub-continent, it becomes a challenge to impart education on one hand and teaching a foreign language on the other. Method of teaching that combines old British with indigenous/rural gives us a hodge-podge mentality that insists on moving up the social ladder as the main goal. Governments think that free books and education would at least raise literacy levels. This attitude need to be addressed by devising modern curriculum taught in indigenous languages that stress on learning rather than memory only. Governments must address these problems beyond immediate political gains.