Editorial

Editorial:-

                       India is a country with several renowned institutions that train world-class students. The unfortunate part of this training has been the fact that many of these graduates preferred to settle down and work overseas. As far as their opinion is concerned brain drain is better than brain in the drain. This was basically due to the fact that the knowledge gained by them was appreciated and used better overseas, with more avenues for intellectual stimulation and growth. Unfortunately, these avenues were lacking in India, as the industries or academic/research organizations did not need them, except possibly in the nuclear, space and defense fields.

                 Now the latest trend in the field of higher education in India is publication of research based papers/articles in the journals of national or international repute and hence ‘publish or perish’ was the motto. Though this trend continues today, but other terms also thrown in i.e. the ‘impact factor’, the ‘citation index’, and now the ‘H index’. The ‘H index’ is basically the number of papers cited that many number of times. About 84% of the Nobel laureates in physics have an ‘H index’ of more than 30, clearly indicating that only consistent cutting-edge research can take you far. A multiple factor criterion, which included quality of education, quality of faculty, research output and size of institution, was used to rank universities around the world and no doubt few of the Indian educational institutions has made their place confirmed among the world class institutions. But a sad state of affairs is in terms of the quality of publications. The ‘publish or perish’ motto is also creating a dangerous trend, where the faculty tell the students what to do, get the results, write papers and get them published. The faculty gets their promotions and become ‘successful’. The research scholar, with say five papers, gets a Ph D degree, but is actually a ‘research coolie’ who does not know how to design an experiment, analyse the results, write a paper or proposal, or present his work. In the real world, this research scholar is a misfit and at best becomes a ‘research worker’. Such a trend exists in many universities departments/laboratories where the junior/research scholar carries out the instructions of the professors/senior fellows. In the process a vacuum is created and when the senior retires there is no one to lead the laboratories or organizations.

                    Hence we have made an endeavor to provide avenues for the research scholars and prospective academics to air their opinions, views, and ideas by making a print forum available to them and publish different articles in the field of education and equip themselves with competencies & skills needed in the changing times.

          

Dr. Tapan Kumar Sahu

     Editor-in Chief