What can a scholarship do?

Scholarships come in many kinds and hues. I am not an expert in this topic, but to me, they fall into two major catgories – enabling scholarhips, merit scholarships. Enabling scholarships are awarded to students based on a number of factors, which might otherwise place a hurdle on their education. They also serve as a means of encouragement to continue education. The regular BC scholarships, first-graduate scholarships and many other scholarships targeted at economically backward students and girl students fall into this category.

Merit scholarships, on the other hand, are meant to appreciate and reward students of academic brilliance and merit. They often come as a reward for academic achievements.

These two types of scholarships do not fall into mutually exclusive silos nor are they are an umbrella to describe all scholarships. There are scholarships that are awarded to the most scholarly of an economic strata, etc. But, in general, they can be classified into one of the two types based on the determining factor of eligibility.

Then, of course, we have the government scholarships, corporate scholarships, endowment scholarships, etc. My lines of thought here was triggered by and centered on a set of merit scholarships awarded by a corporate house(or corporate-based foundation, I beg to be allowed the luxury of not having to worry about the nitty-gritty here). 

“Aditya Birla Scholarhips” said a full—page ad in The Hindu, alongside a picture of smartly dressed girls and boys, with poised looks and winning smiles directed at the camera. The scholars were all students from IITs, IIMs and BITS. Some hunting on the net turned up details of the scholarships which were awarded each year to students of these premier institutions of engineering and management studies. The website also hosted details of scholars from previous years. Each biodata read like the next – topper, brilliant at Maths, etc. Don’t get me wrong, each scholar’s CV was awesome indeed. But, well, they were nearly the same. Of course, how different will the CVs of IITians be, or IIMers, for that matter.

Engineering education in a premier government institute isn’t too costly. Yet, having graduated out of a premier engineering institute myself, I do appreciate that a scholarship eases the load on the student’s family. On the other hand, if you are in IIM, I imagine it comes as a boon, given the exorbitant fee structure.

I do appreciate the Birla group encouraging the top talent in the country in their endeavours of higher education(though B.Tech hardly qualifies as “higher” education). Yet, I can’t help but feel, that there are other avenues that merit these scholarships. No, I am not miffed that my alma-mater MIT was not considered in the “premier” list or that the scholars weren’t chosen from a wider net.

I wish the focus was, instead, on graduates of Arts and Sciences disciplines. We are at a dearth for social scientists, economists and other such students of “lesser subjects”. While our prowess in software industry is indeed good for our GDP, it is our grasp of economics and sociology that will put us in the path of inclusive growth. While engineering will help us build the dams, it will be our knowledge of ecology, hydrology, oceanography that will help us manage and sustain our natural resources. While engineering will help us build our reactors, it will be hard-core physics that will enable us to design our nuclear power programme in the first place. While our engineers can build our refineries and mines, it will be our geologists who can tell us where to build them and where to dig. 

Coming to management, while our management graduates can instruct us on the business model, marketing and supply-chain management, it will take an economist to distill the economic sense in any business model. While our management graduates and engineer create huge conglomerates, there will be a need for astute lawyers to ensure the laws of the land are held sacrosanct. Finally, given all our flashy, successful, cosmopolitan population, it will take an administrator to ensure our roads are laid, bridges built, traffic managed and water supply regulated.

Yet, it is these disciplines of Pure and Applied Sciences and Social Sciences, which are considered “lesser”, and are routinely ignored. It is this “greater-lesser” disparity that the Aditya Birla Scholarships demonstrate.

If indeed there are scholarships from the same foundation for the Science disciplines, my apologies for assuming otherwise will be speedily rendered. Let us say, for instance, that there are indeed scholarships for the students of other disciplines, then, shouldn’t they be the ones highlighted so as to motivate students to walk along the “road-less-taken”?

My plea here is two-fold, encouragement for students pursuing the Arts and Sciences, motivation for more students to take up study and pursue careers in these disciplines. Little knowledge exists in the society on the significance of these disciplines and even less is the awareness of the career paths and opportunities in that arena.

It is an entirely different argument that parents literally thrust the “lucrative” engineering and medicine education on their children. The question of who should decide the career of the student is a raging debate of all-time. My argument here is that, given the limited knowledge of career choices, students themselves lack the guidance and vision to chose an academic path that is more in line with their interests, even where their parents let them choose (and lots of parents do that, I can assure you).

This is a large problem that has to be tackled on many fronts. Awareness of Arts, Sciences, Engineering, medicine, etc should be created in the student in the school years. The syllabi, extra-curricular activities should facilitate that. Parent-education should be available, so that they can in turn educate their children. Excellent government institutions of research and learning should be built and developed.

OK, so it is a mega-problem, what does the Aditya Birla Scholarships have to do with this then? The encouragement can come from many quarters. And backed by a corporate name of repute, the scholarships(if created), will enjoy a position of prestige and will be a wonderful source of motivation for the students. The full-page ad, then, might ignite a few sparks. It would warm the hearts of parents and reassure them that, there are indeed accolades and well-being in store for their kids should they chose the less-trodden path. It might, then, create a Dr. Manmohan Singh or Dr Ahluwalia or a T. N. Seshan or a Nani Palkhiwala.