Wanted: more science, more scientists
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We are doing better science but the number of practising scientists is coming down
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— Photo: Mohammed Yousuf
CATCH THEM YOUNG: If you catch them early and hold their interest, you change them for life.
TODAY INDIA and China are classified, along with twenty others, as scientifically proficient countries (SPC). China has been steadily promoting its science and has marched ahead. By 2020, it plans to become one among the 25 scientifically advanced countries (SAC).
India might stay an SPC or even slip into a scientifically developing country (SDC) like Pakistan, unless we act now. Professor C.N.R. Rao wrote to the Prime Minister: "If you are worried about economic competitiveness and not about scientific competitiveness, then I think the future will be bleak".
The situation is ironic since the quality of science being done today in many centres across India is actually of a higher order than what it was 20 years ago. We are doing, on an average, better science but the number of practising scientists is coming down.
The reason for this leaky pipeline, as the physicist V. S. Ramamurthy describes it, is clear to all of us. Parents push their children, already at the class 8-9 stage, to prepare to enter medicine or engineering.
Negative perception
Degrees in these disciplines are thought to guarantee a high-income, high-quality life, while one in science is not always so guaranteed. Given this perception, how does one attract talented youngsters into careers in science?
The very first remedy is to increase the salary structure of scientists. The government has taken a lawn-mower levelling approach. It thinks: "how can a scientist in a university or a national laboratory be paid more than a bureaucrat?"
Private industry does not think so. Scientists employed in GE India or Dr. Reddy's Laboratories are paid more than even the Cabinet Secretary.
Also, the so-called "security of a government job" is no longer an issue for parents or youngster seeking a hire-and-fire job in industry. With the opening up of the economy, there will be more job openings for scientists and at attractive salaries.
Clearly then, we need more and more scientists; some have estimated that we need a five-fold increase in the numbers to cater to the future. Professor Rao has further argued, rightly, that the government must raise the remuneration of scientists, engineers and university teachers at all levels.
Remuneration should come not only as increased salary slabs, but also by enabling them liberally to attend professional meetings, earn consultancy money and such. Catch them young, showcase their success!
This last point is not trivial. The joy in thinking up an idea and working it through is a special one.
And youngsters feel it in far greater measure and intensity. It is for this reason that one needs to promote interest in science and arts in boys and girls at an early age. It is striking to see what happens to children's minds when you challenge them. Professor Dipankar Chatterji of Bangalore, who runs the national programme called Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (KVPY), talks about a project designed and successfully completed by a girl, all by herself. She worried about the energy being wasted when the steam release bob on the pressure cooker rapidly rotates as the pressure builds. Using several brand cookers, cutting down the flame and the time, she quantitatively measured the energy loss and found ways to cut it down.
The Confederation of Indian Industry, Department of Science and Technology and the Intel Corporation have put together a competition called IRIS, enabling talented Indian children to compete globally with their ideas and innovations.
International medals
Many Indian youth have already won international medals. For details, go to www.innovation.net.in/iris.
India has been participating in the International Science Olympiads for the last dozen years, and getting medals and mentions year after year.
Details are found at www. hbcse.tifr.res.in/olympiads. Why not open these competitions to even younger children? Students enjoy science by doing it, not just reading it. Practical classes in the syllabus are one thing, but doing science in `real life' is a component that can be easily added in schools and colleges. This involves connecting with scientific and technical research establishments and university laboratories, and placing students for short times there, `on the wet lab,' periodically.
The labs and factories get free pairs of excited hands and the students a feel for what doing science can be. BITS Pilani has been doing this successfully for two decades, by sending its students to over 150 places across the nation, for such `practice schools.' BITS and others do it at the graduate level. Why not do so even earlier? Catch them younger, even in classes 8 and 9? Send a thousand children to neighbouring research labs every summer and winter for a two-week hands-on session and let them experience the act of doing science.
Dramatic results
The results can be dramatic. Not every child will turn into science, but we might commit many an interested one. Over the years, colleges and universities have built walls within science and compartmentalised it — not just as chemistry, physics, math and biology, but even within them. Science is inclusive, comprehensive, seamless and interdisciplinary.
In an integrated science curricular scheme, the student learns all subjects and uses them together in a fused fashion. Such programmes at the IISc, University of Hyderabad, BITS and the two newly started IISERs at Pune and Kolkata have shown how effective this idea is.
The students too like it. There is no one unique approach to the issue of promoting more science, attracting more youngsters into a career in science, and making India a SAC. Let all noble thoughts pour in, let us try many of them, and let a thousand flowers bloom. The future belongs to ideas and knowledge. The time-proven formula for success is through science. Let us do more science and make more scientists.
D. BALASUBRAMANIAN
dbala@lvpei.org
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