No matter what metal you have, Gold is Gold.
There are two sides of a coin. In this case, while there is a number of age old institutes, their newer counterpart dominate the opposite side. Even when they both exist in the same educational world, they have shown a mark difference in their various aspects like fees, teaching methods and much more. What has emerged because of this difference is the fact that they continue to affect each other in terms of student's enrollment, placements and much more. Let’s look more into this difference and implication by taking example of two of the most prestigious institutes; Banaras Hindu University and Visva Bharati on one side; and other new colleges like Symbiosis and IIMs on the other.
Snippets of oldiesBanaras Hindu University
Banaras Hindu University or BHU is located in Varanasi. Being formed in the year 1916, it is probably one of the oldest universities of the India. Formed by Pt. Madan Mohan Malviya with the aim to make youth aware of the freedom that comes with the power of education and righteousness, BHU still stands upon this thought. An institute that is spread over 1300 acres of land, provides a large number of programs, all at one place. All this helped the university bag first rank in India Today’s top 50 colleges in the year 2013.
Visva Bharati
Visva Bharati is one of the only universities of India that specializes in teaching art and music to students. Formed by Rabindranath Tagore in the year 1901, it still works on the mission of bringing unity through the medium of art. The university is also one of a kind because of the fact that it still promotes Gurukul teaching over classroom teaching. The college is known to have given gems like Satyajit Ray, Amartya Sen etc. to our country.
Now that we have got a fair idea of one side of the coin, let’s turn it.
Snippets of NewbiesSymbiosis
The institute got its autonomous state in the year 2002. It offers multiple under grad and post graduate courses. Managed by the Symbiosis society, it has received multiple awards like the IMC Gold awards etc. in the year 2014 itself. The institute has over 19 colleges spread over multiple cities, functioning with the aim of providing multi lingual, national and multi-disciplinary education. The gems that Symbiosis has given India are Nikhil Dwivedi, Narayani Shastri etc.
IIMs
This is one of those few institutes of India that requires zero introductions. IIM or the Indian Institute of Management was formed in the year 1972 by the Government of India. It offers PGDM Degree to the aspirants who opt for higher education in India. The scholars who have graduated are presently one of the biggest names of the country such as Raghuram Rajan, Chetan Bhagat etc. who have graduated from around 13 different institutes.
So, we have got a fair idea of the types or the generation of institutes we are discussing here. It’s time to look at what makes them so different, and try to find out what is it that makes the old institutes lag a little behind in the race of popularity.
Even when both the old and new institutes have equally difficult selection process, experienced faculty, and quality of education that is evidently good considering how good both Chetan Bhagat and Satyajit Ray turned out, there is still a lot of difference in the sentiments of aspirants. Let’s see why that might be.
When OLD is gold, what makes NEW platinum?
Even when the Old institutes are in action since a lot many decades, the reasons that make new universities a sweet deal are very unimportant, but significant:
The location
Even if students accept it or not, the location where their university is, matters a lot in their head! In college life, where we all crave for a metro city with the ease of connectivity and easy availability of everyday needs plus a source of entertainment, the absence of these can prove to be a little problem. Here’s a survey to show the same.
Media and Company Hype
How many times have you read about the package offered to an IIM or FMS? Now, how many times have you heard about the package offered to a BHU or Visva Bharati student? Let the rest be unsaid.
International Teaching Methodology
The teaching methods used by a majority of new institutes are smart classes, case study, practical study etc. these are a little less in case of the old universities.
On campus
The number of companies that come for on campus placements in the new category of universities are to some level more than what appears for selection in the old colleges. In time of financial independence, the need of having a job when in college seems to be an attractive pull. Here’s the two links to show the difference of highest package of both IIM and BHU in the year 2014.
How the Oldies can win this Survival of the Fittest race?
In many ways, old gives a good competition to the new universities, or at least have the tendency to.
What the oldies need to realize are although they are famous, they need to advertise! They need to be in news for good, not to make people aware, but to make aspirants remember. Next, they should trim down the tag of being a tourist attraction. They can’t stop people visiting the oldest university or the place where Rabindranath Tagore, spent most of his time; what they can do is lower the time limit a bit more. The last thing and probably an important one is that they should try to adapt modern teaching methods too. Being old and famous, they wouldn’t have much problem in terms of funds and training.
A little effort is going to take them far, the gold might have taken a backseat because of platinum, but who are we fooling? Gold is Gold!
I write on the behalf of shiksha.com, where I observe educational scenarios, what’s wrong, what are right and much more. I am a born observer; it’s only recently that I have started penning it down. I hope you loved reading this piece as much as I loved writing it!