Recently a survey was conducted to find out how many students wish to pursue higher education and choose teaching profession as a career. Less than 5% students showed any interest to pursue higher education and take teaching profession as a career. No top ranking student showed any interest.
There are several reasons for this trend.
1.) White-collar jobs with high salaries immediately after graduating. This is the sole reason for many to take up jobs after bachelors degree.
2.) Improper infrastructure for higher education in India. There are only about 10
institutes (IISc, some IITs and few others like TIFR etc.) which offer good research environment. And none of them are in top 100 in the world. It's a shame.
3.) Scary environment in IITs when it comes to PhD degrees. Almost nobody would be willing to spend that much time (minimum of 4 years. I know some guys who spent 7 years) in obtaining a degree which, even after completing successfully, would guarantee no high salary jobs nor any dignified respect from society.
4.) The perception of Indian society towards research and especially teaching. Trust me, Indian society deems PhD candidates as psychos, mad, etc. And definitely there are less options for marriage.
5.) Even if someone wants to pursue PhD, there are no proper jobs once he/she finishes PhD. And we are left only with teaching jobs. In India, they are not attractive at all, with meagre salaries when compared to jobs in IT sector or other countries. On the other hand, immediate job after bachelors degree means more dowry in case of boys and hence parents push them into taking immediate jobs. (I don't need to mention that India is male chauvinistic society).
6.) Constant push by the college management to place more number of students in IT companies so that they can advertise and attract more students next year.
7.) IT sector might be a boom to Indian economy but (In my view) IT completely screwed up the already dim environment for higher education in India.
Mr. Kumah,
making decisions at that initial stage in life is really challenging when you see folks especially from the oil and gas sector doing exceedingly well and the so called lecturers are abandoned by the government prompting them to live from hand to mouth it is really mesmerizing. Let me use myself as an example, I graduated tops in my class and am currently pursuing my Masters degree to pick up a lecturing job if need be but it is seriously under probability because the encouragement is not there....the system is crumbling especially in Africa and if something is not done sooner than later it might result to "INTENTIONAL ILLITERACY" a situation whereby a great deal of persons would lose interest in even obtaining a first degree.
Lecturing as a profession should be given utmost attention because that is where the future really lies.
Onyegu S.O.
it takes lot of time to get Ph.D, Top ranked graduates are placed quickly in multinational company and starts earning quicker than higher education graduates.
Job prospects, Still very hard to tell them that you can excel in teaching & research also
In a constantly changing environment decisions that will constrain students for a considerable amount of time are clearly non optimal.
Teaching or an academic career although fascinating is not easy and simple and requires even more time and some luck. All of these result to a reduced interest especially for those capable enough to find a good job as engineering professionals.
There are several reasons for this trend.
1.) White-collar jobs with high salaries immediately after graduating. This is the sole reason for many to take up jobs after bachelors degree.
2.) Improper infrastructure for higher education in India. There are only about 10
institutes (IISc, some IITs and few others like TIFR etc.) which offer good research environment. And none of them are in top 100 in the world. It's a shame.
3.) Scary environment in IITs when it comes to PhD degrees. Almost nobody would be willing to spend that much time (minimum of 4 years. I know some guys who spent 7 years) in obtaining a degree which, even after completing successfully, would guarantee no high salary jobs nor any dignified respect from society.
4.) The perception of Indian society towards research and especially teaching. Trust me, Indian society deems PhD candidates as psychos, mad, etc. And definitely there are less options for marriage.
5.) Even if someone wants to pursue PhD, there are no proper jobs once he/she finishes PhD. And we are left only with teaching jobs. In India, they are not attractive at all, with meagre salaries when compared to jobs in IT sector or other countries. On the other hand, immediate job after bachelors degree means more dowry in case of boys and hence parents push them into taking immediate jobs. (I don't need to mention that India is male chauvinistic society).
6.) Constant push by the college management to place more number of students in IT companies so that they can advertise and attract more students next year.
7.) IT sector might be a boom to Indian economy but (In my view) IT completely screwed up the already dim environment for higher education in India.
Here in Brazil I'd say that this happens because recently graduated students are much more concerned with their salaries, and the industries here can pay higher salaries than the universities.
Furthermore, all the good universities here (the ones that are able to teach students with quality and develop technology) are state-owned, and in order to become a professor in one of those universities one must go through a public tender, and to be approved he or she must have a considerably good number of publications.
In India, there are several reasons to take up job,1) family constraints, 2) settling in life in a short time. They might be fed up with four/five years classroom life so they always need some changes how things work outside....
most probably, in today's scenario, students want to settle as quick as possible. at the same time, most of them do not want ot aquire higher education due to monotony of studies. In some cases, family conditions also matters.
Specifically in Indian Education system, the value of degree is on downside track. Many really qualified, hard workers not stand in front of good manipulators with fake degree or easy earned degree holders. Topers are always sincere and emotional and they can not play politics in front of personality of manipulating people as they want to focus on technical aspects.
When the PhD student is in his/her 30 years old, her friends of undergraduate school are already working 5 or more years, had a promotion (boss, projetc manager, etc), bought a house, sttled down (spouse, kids). The PhD candidate is finishing his thesis, and then he/she must fight next 5 or 10 years for the few available tenured posts...
I'm wondering who would decline a PhD program in a top-ranked university with full tuition waiver...?!
One should cast doubt on that survey. It's about human decision and can't seem to find a general conclusion about this story.
BTW, I see no relationship between higher education and choosing teaching profession.
At first we have to ask few simple honest questions to ourselves who boast to be a scholar after getting a doctoral degree. What we actually gain from the practice of a thesis based degree. I guess, we get the training of sytemetically and ingeniously solving a problem (which the candidate thinks is the best interest for mankind although it may not have any impact at all). Now the question is how we get those problems. In most of the cases, atleast in engineering, these problems comes from a funding source. Lot of the cases, the funding source is not even looking for any deliverable from those projects. Who determines the strategy of the government and private (corporate) funding sources? I guess they are all polticians and managers who have never done any serious research (they are actually the brightest enggineering bachelors who left engineering and went into management). Even after getting a Ph.D., a so called scientist will work in the projects depending on available funding sources whose strategy and policy are determined by bunch of business-mineded smart engineering bachelors (who left academics for managerial prospects). So whats the point of doing the Ph.D. if with my bachlors degree I can have a bunch of Ph.D.s to work for the strategy ( which I decide to be the best for mankind or for myself).
Its a serious time to reconsider the age old german tradition of granting apprenticeship based Ph.D. to so many people, so much so, that it is becoming so diluted that smart people are actually making fun of it.
In the current social environment in India, once a person has graduated i.e., obtained a bachelor's degree, the immediate question is "Where would he/she be working?".. Higher education is not on the cards as education is not free in this country.
Even in cases wherein stipends are given for Master's students, they are a mere fraction (20-30%) of the salaries that one could get fresh out of college.
If you are bright and interested in teaching, even a Master's degree is not enough, at least not in the top colleges. An additional PhD would set you off at the least 5 years. Bu this time, your employed bachelor's classmate would have 7 years of working experience and a good bank balance.
The teaching-aspirant is still stuck with the prospect of a low salary in spite of higher education.
I think this phenomenon can not be attributed to any single reason. Some of the reasons that come to mind are listed below, however, mind it please that these are my opinions and one may need to conduct some empirical analysis for authentic conclusions.
1. To pursue higher studies till the completion of PhD (after having completed bachelors degree) may take more than five years of hard work and a lot of spending. While the expected compensation (after PhD) may still be less than that of a classmate who had been working in industry for all those years after having called off his/her studies (at the completion of bachelors).
2. Add to the difference in compensation, as argued above, the earnings that the counterpart working in industry have got in those lost years and the difference would seem much wider.
3. Engineering is all about manufacturing/producing goods and services based on all the knowledge and skills acquired. So, somehow the true engineering students (and graduates) always have strong aspirations for getting involved into those areas where they have a chance to manufacture, produce and possibly innovate.
4. A truly inspired engineering student is (more likely to be) to be a person who is not excited by obtaining and disseminating knowledge. So the real excitement of high achieving engineering graduates comes from the practical use of the knowledge (as opposed to a science student) and that excitement takes them to industry rather than academia.
5. The industry, as an employment sector, is much larger and offers a very broad range of variety of work types as opposed to academia which is a very small sector and has a lot of monotony.
And one can list many more reasons some have already been mentioned here by other colleagues.
First you will spend a lot of money and effort to pursue a higher education.Second After graduation if they see an opportunity to teach they prefer to do it as temporarily job but later on if they feel happy to this job they forgot their plan to pursue higher education.
There is a big difference between a bright student striving for livelihood from a developing economy to the one from a highly developed environment as the latter can choose and shape his destiny while the former gets carried away by the undercurrents of socio-economic factors which very few can fathom.
Many bright student and his parents want to convert their intelligence into money as quickly as possible after degree course. They don't want to wait for some more years to earn and want to settle as early as possible. Quick Money is the only Motto.
@Muralidhar Lakkanna
I am afraid if your teacher reads this will be very upset. Livelihood due to various factors are often not to ones liking. But once anyone gets into a job then work is worship,
Dear Muralidhar,
Your assessment about leftovers taking to teaching is not out of place but calling anyone "leftovers" is out of line! BTW, our engineers are the Worst! They have no talent whatsoever! Statistics of high-impact inventions bear witness to that!
Good grades are not always the measure of ability, especially teaching ability!
@Muralidhar Lakkanna
No offence meant to anyone. Sometimes realities are indeed harsh as you expressed; and we are all only debating. If a class room contains half the students very intelligent and the remaining students below average; one can say in two ways. Favorably we can say "we have in our class 50 percent intelligent students" and no offence is meant. If it is said differently there could be trouble. Hence the word diplomacy is talked about.
It is always good to have a revolutionary spirit, an inner fire, too tease and tackle among the younger generations and I am no one to come in the way which will help to build a strong nation.
Dear Mr, the trend you described exisited everywhere in the world, firstly we may not contribute this to educations. I think the will deep in human nature should be the most important.
In philosophy, stiffness could not maintain a long time. the top ranking students maybe had made great efferts and feel tired, or they made little efferts but received many award easily.
Not like a machine, human wants to see different scenes, and they had needs, just as the Theory Maslow raised.
How to teach without a MsC or a PhD degree ? Maybe in the primary or gymnasial educational cycles. But for universitary level, you need to have those degrees...
The plain fact is that most of us in the developing nations face the uncertainty of where one will be well placed be it a job in the industries or in the teaching field.
As the teaching field becomes meaningful only after post grad and PhD taking long years of effort beside low remuneration most of the intelligent and economically dependent students opt for a job. The more affordable elite who have well to do parents and are very bright opt overseas for a better education which is recognized and paying. Those in the less economic strata go for jobs which place them immediately after they complete their graduations.
The less unlucky ones who have performed with mediocrity , though they have other talents go for M. tech in the indigenous route and add an extended PhD in the nearby universities and come up as professors. Of course we are not addressing about the qualities of the teacher in this thread.
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