"Indian science will be finished in the next five years. Our universities have dried up.” When this grim warning is by C.N. Rao, the Prime Minister's own science advisor, it’s time for India to sit up and take notice.
With an impressive history of scientific discovery spanning over thousands of years and no shortage of manpower, why is the future of Indian science so bleak?
One of the major factors for the decline in science over the past few years is the dismal quality of science education imparted to students. Science textbooks are shockingly outdated. College labs are poorly equipped and experiments are infrequently conducted. As faculties at Indian universities are rarely involved in research work their students have no exposure to scientific methods or thinking.
India undoubtedly does have a few excellent institutions for science & technology such as IISc, TIFR and the famed IIT’s, but these are far too few and selective to lift Indian science out of the doldrums. International systems of schooling such as the IB are replacing Indian boards such as ICSE and CBSE in cities, but most of the Indian population cannot dream of affording these exclusive schools.
The country needs a homegrown solution that reaches out to the masses if it hopes to resurface as a global leader in basic sciences. Of a population of over a billion, 400 million Indians are illiterate. Seventy five percent of them live in rural areas and have no access to basic resources or funds for education. Properly motivated, this staggeringly large 'unexploited brainpower' can be transformed to generate massive economic and social returns for the country.
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