THERE IS A saying that college is not the place you go to, it is the place you go from.
From personal experience, I feel that is true. My own college life changed me in ways that I cannot fathom. And today, when my hair is a mass of silver, I am grateful for those years, for the bonds formed then and for the lessons I learnt outside the classroom.
As India rushes to colleges, THE WEEK presents its annual special issue on best colleges. The package is supported by THE WEEK-Hansa Research survey listing India’s best colleges across disciplines. I am confident that the survey and the stories together will help aspirants make an informed choice. If we missed anything, or if you would like to see something more, do let us know.
In the main story, Vijaya Pushkarna, our deputy chief of bureau in Delhi, writes about how outreach activities and industry tie-ups are changing the shape of education as we know it. She quotes from the World Economic Forum’s 2016 report, which states that 65 per cent of students in primary school today will be working jobs that do not exist now. So, education is going to be more about enabling students to solve problems in real time, and less about earning a fine certificate with copperplate lettering.
As mentioned in the package, community interaction is going to be mandatory across subjects. The problems are in the field, and identifying them is going to be the start of one’s education. India’s shape is changing as you read this letter, and the change is being reflected in the educational and career choices of the youth. True, the comparatively inefficient state apparatus forces the young ones to look out for themselves and to be risk averse. Still, young entrepreneurs are taking on the system, and others are dedicating their lives, fully or partly, to the service of the “easily despised and the readily left out”. More power to you, young ones. You have more courage than I did at your age.
I am also taking this opportunity to thank our columnist M.K. Bhadrakumar on your behalf, dear reader. He was one of the keepers of Last Word, and gave it a gravitas rooted in 29 years of experience in the Indian Foreign Service. Though this week’s column will be his last regular piece for the time being, THE WEEK’s relationship with him will continue.
I will leave you with a commencement speech made last year at Pepperdine University, California. The speaker, Fr Gregory J. Boyle, S.J., is the founder of Homeboy Industries, reportedly the world’s largest gang-intervention and rehabilitation programme.
Boyle challenged the students to go out and be change-makers. “God does not share in the demonising which we all engage in,” he reminded them. “And, so you choose to go from here and you dismantle the barriers that exclude… and you stand with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. And, you stand with those whose dignity has been denied, and you stand with those whose burdens are more than they can bear…. You go from here to the demonised, so that the demonising will stop. And you stand with the disposable, so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away. You go to the margins not to make a difference, because then that is about you. You go to the margins so that the folks at the margins make you different.”
And, does the word ‘margin’ bring to your mind images of mud homes, rough roads and starving children far away? Actually, the margins are not that far. So, please do not let college be about them and us.
There is no them. It is just us.