Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal recently accused the British of destroying the Indian education system and turning it into an assembly-line of clerk making. He called on students to train to become job givers, not job seekers. Kejriwal made the remarks while addressing the inauguration ceremony of the east Delhi campus of Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU). He dedicated the new campus to the country and termed it as one of the best campuses in the country with excellent facilities.
The Chief Minister said that every year approximately 2.5 lakh boys and girls complete their schooling in the city and become ready for college. Roughly 1.5 lakh of these students complete their schooling from government schools and the rest from private schools. When we formed the government for the first time in 2015, we found that in Delhi there were college seats for only around 1.1 lakh of these children. So, there was a deficit of around 1.4 lakh seats, he said, stressing that the AAP gave a model for school education, and now its focus is on higher education.
Kejriwal slammed British bureaucrat Lord Macaulay for creating an education system that still exists, merely to churn out educated clerks. The British in the 1830s supplanted the Indian education system with their own, not to enlighten the natives, but to raise educated clerks to help the foreign bureaucracy ruling the country. Unfortunately, this system still continues in the country. We complete our BA and then do an MA, some even do a PhD, but we still struggle to get a job after all this struggle. What is the point in doing all this if there are no jobs for our students? he asked.
On this campus, students will be taught automation, design, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data management, and innovation. This is the demand of the technological world, he said. Kejriwal said that the Delhi government is thinking of conducting a survey to know what people who studied in the city schools end up doing, among other things.
The GGSIPU’s east Delhi campus has become the latest flashpoint between the AAP-led city government and Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena, with both sides claiming the right to inaugurate the newly built campus and take credit for its construction.
