Book Introduction

Back in March 2011, I started a blog Globian Perspective (http://www.globiansperspective.com) for sharing my understanding of the issues of India in a global perspective. “Globian” stands for Global + Indian. This blog is a sincere effort to provide justifiable and holistic analysis of the complex reality of the Indian society. In this book, I present the compilation of the blog articles on India’s educational issues.

In his book – Making Social Science Matter, Flyvbjerg presents many great suggestions for social scientists. One thing that struck me the most was that the researchers ought to effectively communicate their work with the fellow citizens, instead of communicating with each other within academic circles. If they do this effectively, social science can be transformed into an activity done in public for the public to help them understand the present and deliberate the future.

This book (and the blog) is an attempt to reach out to the common people and engage them in vital conversations regarding India’s education. I have kept the language non-technical. Though I have provided references at relevant places, their aim is to establish credibility and give due credit to the other researchers.

For your convenience, the book has been organized into three sections: 1) Understanding the Present Context; 2) Education and Knowledge Economy; and 3) Education for Social Cohesion and Global Citizenship.

Within each section, I present relevant articles with a broader objective of analysing major problems and presenting their solutions. Though the centre and state governments in India may have many on-going relevant initiatives, their discussion is beyond the scope of this book. This book is more about understanding the context and discussing ideas and how these ideas may find application into the educational system of a developing country like India.

Being a lazy reader myself, I have been very cautious in taking your reading-time by being succinct. To best of my abilities, I have tried to present the complexity of issues in minimum words and in a lucid manner.

This book would not have been possible without the assistance of my publisher, BloggingBooks. Especially, I thank Adrian Doyle for responding to my endless queries. Special thanks to my close friend Vishal Bhatt for providing many creative images. I deeply acknowledge the emotional support of all friends and well-wishers, especially my family: grandparents –  Vasumati and  Suresh Shukla; parents –  Uma and Dushyant Shukla; elder-brother & family – Chintan, Namrata, Tanay and Darsh; younger brother – Vedant; and finally, my loving and caring wife – Alo. I am highly indebted to all of you.

Please visit the book page: http://www.globiansperspective.com/p/book-education-in-india_7268.html