There has been some discussion about academic qualification of the new Union Minister for HRD, Ms. Smriti Irani.
We have been hearing that the greatest strength of India is the young population. India has the largest pool of young citizens, who have many more years to meaningfully contribute to the economic development of the country. The question is how ready this human resource pool is to play their role.
Large number of these people would not go to the IITs or IIMs. Yes, it is important to have world class institutions of higher education, but it is equally or more important to develop and channelize the abilities of millions of young people who will not be able to go beyond 12th standard. This is the real challenge of the Human Resource Development in the country.
After hearing the criticism leveled at Ms. Smriti Irani, based only on her academic qualification, I was reminded of the following quote by John W. Gardner:
“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as an humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy; neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”
As a society,we have to shun this attitude of ” Higher and Lower level of work” and “Higher and lower level of qualifications”. Then only we will be able to change the attitudes of all the contributors to the country’s development. When those who are supposed to keep the roads and bridges clean take pride in their work, and those who are supposed to design and build bridges, and flyovers do not make professional compromises, will we have clean roads and bridges that do not collapse.
Ability to develop and motivate our Human Resources to achieve their best in whatever they do is the only ability the leaders responsible for HRD require. Their academic qualification is inconsequential.
Self EGO satisfaction!
Nice Write-up. Reminds me of the famous ‘Whats in the name?’ quote.
While qualifications are not always important, they also bring some comfort level to other stake holders. Take for example we require CA to do audit, Qualified pilot to fly aircraft and qualified doctor to perform Surgery. If qualifications are not important then training also takes back seat. Qualifications is a result of training.
I think doubt is arising because of poor quality of training and lack of supervision of training institutes. Doubts arise when you see a top lawyer and a lawyer tugging at your sleeve outside small cause court, having same qualifications.
Kuldip Joshi
I would like to add a few thoughts to this discussion. We already have many poiliticians in our country who possess degrees and doctorates in all possible fields starting right from law to humanities. Most of these people are corrupt and are facing charges against them in a number of scams. They have actually not done anything for the country in their long political careers. The list is long..!! So in our country, being formally educated hardly means that the person is a good administrator, politician or for that matter a good human being.
We have enough historical evidence to prove that many of the well known administrators worldwide actually did not have any formal education.
So the bottom line is that we would any day prefer a less educated honest administrator over a corrupt scamster who possesses double doctorates.
Nice one Vijay especially the Gardner quote. Every job is important and so is the relevant qualification to do it. Those who carped about Irani’s qualification are examples of great Indian paradox; they have great qualifications but, as Kuldip would say, ‘poor training’!
Excellent quote and further discussions on the contemporary subject.
In our political system , the Minister has to be MP ( Lok sabha / Rajya Sabha ) , hence will be the representative of voting citizens of India . No educational qualification is compulsorily attached to it . He/She takes the decision , implement policies in the interest of the people and so should have skills related to this.
The performance alone will tell , whether she is the right candidate or not.
Person with common sense, good communication skills, excellent grasping power, clarity and purity of thoughts, patience and determination to take up challenges can excel in life. For him college degree is not a barrier. He can win even Mt. Everest.
Qualification reflects ability but not necessarily competency. Unfortunately, as stated by Kuldip in our country the training to achieve qualification is inadequate and certificates are not always earned but sometimes distributed.