Govt spend in edu sector vital, privatisation won’t help, Rahul Gandhi tells IIT-M students
Asked how the Congress and the BJP are different in terms of how they operate, he said the Congress and UPA generally believe that the resources should be distributed more fairly and growth should be wider and inclusive.
LoP in the Lok Sabha and Congress party MP Rahul Gandhi (PTI)
In a conversation with IIT Madras students held sometime back, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha talked on a host of issues including on the changes he would want to initiate to improve the education system.
"I believe it is one of the foremost responsibilities of any government to guarantee quality education to its people. This cannot be achieved through privatisation and financial incentives.
"We need to spend a lot more money on education and strengthening government institutions," he said in a post on X, while sharing an edited video of his conversation with the students.
Asked how the Congress and the BJP are different in terms of how they operate, he said the Congress and UPA generally believe that the resources should be distributed more fairly and growth should be wider and inclusive.
The BJP, he said, is more aggressive on growth. "They believe in what in economic terms is 'triple-down'. On the social front, we feel that the more harmonious society is, the fewer people are fighting, the better it is for the country.
"On the international relations front, there are probably some differences with regard to how we relate to other countries, but it will be similar," he said.
He said that to promote higher education, a country needs to guarantee quality education to its people.
"I don't think the best way to guarantee quality education to our people is to privatise everything. Frankly, when you bring some sort of financial incentive into the game, you don't actually give quality education.
"I have said this many times that the best institutions in our country are government institutions, yours being one of them. I argue that governments spend much more money on education," he told the IIT Madras students.
Gandhi said he had "serious problems" with how the country's education system was set up. "I don't think our education system allows our children's imagination to thrive".
"You might disagree with me. I think it is a very restrictive, top-down system... It is very narrow," he said.
Gandhi said that during his Kanniyakumari to Kashmir Bharat Jodo Yatra, he talked to thousands of children and asked them what they wanted to become.
They said they wanted to become a lawyer, doctor, engineer or an army soldier, he told the students.
"It can't be that there are only five things to do in this country. But that's what our system is pushing," he said, noting that the country's education system measures success only if one becomes an engineer or a doctor, or join the IAS/IPS or gets into the forces, "which is just one per cent or two per cent of our population and 90 per cent of our population is never going to do this".
He said the system should allow kids to do what they want and allow them to experience and do multiple things.
"Our education system disregards many things, it undervalues many professions and overvalues these four or five professions. So those are the types of things that I would like to change," he said.
On the international front, he said, the single most important thing going forward is how India balances China and America.
"In a situation where the two superpowers are going head to head, we have a balancing equation, a balancing ability.... So India is in a space where it can get quite a lot more than its power would give it. So if India intelligently navigates through this thing, without getting stuck or without making a major mistake, then we might benefit from it," Gandhi said.
Noting that the country's education system is a very hierarchical structure, he said its traditional system focuses on introspection, looking inside, and self-observation.
Gandhi favoured pushing children for innovation, saying it can only come if they actually start production and their skill is respected and investment is made in it.
"One of the things that I want to push is moving more into the physical production space. To me, real innovation comes from that space. Put as much money you want in R&D, if you are not actually producing the thing, it will just be a budget," Gandhi said.