John Sculley was a top executive at
Pepsi and had everything going for him. At a time when Steve Jobs and his partner (Steve Wozniak) were just putting Apple
together Jobs wanted Sculley to join the company and be its CEO. A hesitant
Sculley was persuaded by a question that is now a famous quote: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life
selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world”? It’s
often not where you started but where you finish that counts. Jobs had dropped
out of college because he felt his calling lay elsewhere. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard the day he spotted an edition of
the “Popular Electronics” magazine with a home-computer on its cover in 1975.
He and his partner (Paul Allen) met the computer manufacturer and offered to
write software for it. In one of his books Gates mentions that he felt he
had nothing more to learn from Harvard. Both Jobs and Gates dropped out of
college not because they were bad students or bad learners. They dropped out because they had their own
visions.
So when Smriti Irani was appointed HRD Minister some folks questioned her
educational qualifications for the job. The harsh criticism mostly came from Madhu Kishwar (an anti-Modi turned
Pro-Modi activist) and Ajay Maken of
the Congress. Naturally, our media then made a big story out of a petty issue. The
response to Ajay Maken was easy because no Congi even has the moral or
legitimate authority to raise this question as I tweeted him thus:
It is easy to dismiss a nit-picking
politician but that does not answer the question if Smriti’s education or
rather lack of it will be a hindrance to her new job. Some analogies that came
to the defence of Smriti are also frivolous like this one from “Item-girls”
specialist Suhel Seth:
Anyone who has read about Gates would
know that he was a child prodigy with software designing and meddling with
computers. He used to indulge in that since age 9. And when he saw the
opportunity in software while still in Harvard he had a clear vision that one
day every desk will have a computer. Classifying Gates as “not educated” is a silly defence for Smriti. Gates had a clear
vision which has been borne out by the success of his company and by the fact
that many desks in the world do have a computer now. There’s an old joke at Harvard
where the Head tells professors: “Be kind to your “A” students because they will come back
and be your colleagues. Be kind to your “B”
students because they will be prominent public figures like politicians,
lawyers. But be particularly kind to
your “C” students because they will
come back and donate money to our institution”. In other words, even top
business schools mostly know which students are likely to succeed in which
domain of life. Maybe Smriti had a talent for theatre and acting and maybe that’s
why she dropped out of school.
I must mention here that I am only going
by reports that she is 12th pass and I won’t bother verifying because it is
immaterial to me. If she has filed any affidavits that claim differently that
is for scrutiny and for her to clarify. In companies we often tell even the
best MBAs “You may be an MBA but imagine
you are only 12th pass, you will work like there is no tomorrow and find
success”. But the question about Smriti’s education in terms of handling a
ministry like HRD is not entirely invalid. After all, what we want to
understand is even if she is going to be advised and receive a lot of counsel
on policy-making will she be able to comprehend many concepts that form the
basis for a good educational policy and HR development? Some with great degrees
failed to comprehend good advice. Some with zero formal education who had to
start to start with a zero base have often done better jobs. Time will tell.
That brings us to the question on what exactly is education? And that is
the true purpose of this post. In simple
terms education is a process of acquiring knowledge and skills to face life
situations. Schools and colleges are a uniform formal system for such
education for the masses. Each stage is a qualifying process for the next.
Primary qualifies one for middle school, middle school for higher secondary,
higher secondary for college and college for post-graduate and on it goes. This
“assembly line” mass education is
indeed meant for the masses to offer them enough knowledge and skills to make a
reasonable citizen who can make an honourable living. But this system need not
be the only one where knowledge and skills are acquired. Many who have found
greater success in life have acquired such knowledge and skills from other
sources. From the streets, from family, from friends, from experience and, most
of all, from their own imagination, curiosity and dreams. At a starting point
we tend to respect formal degrees a lot more. For other people we tend to
respect their performance outcomes. But
in the end in both cases it is finally the performance that counts and earns
respect.
Just as Gates was a child prodigy in
software, Smriti may have been a child prodigy in acting. Gates has contributed
a lot more money to the world than many banks have. Sculley was selling Pepsi
but shifted to computers. The reason is simple: Basic principles of sales and
marketing remain the same regardless of the product or service. Has Smriti had
her education in other ways than formal schooling? The answer would be yes
because whatever knowledge and skills she acquired through her own pursuit
brought her success. Did she migrate to politics successfully? The answer is
yes; she joined politics and became an MP. Whether publicly elected or elected
to the RS, she has demonstrated the knowledge and skill to get there. A renowned
management firm is known to have once stated that after years of research they
discovered there are only two indisputable truths “Water flows down and performance counts”. We have known people to
migrate to different domains and responsibilities successfully. Smriti’s test
starts now and time will tell whether she was the right choice for the job.
The outrage in some circles both ways;
rubbishing Smriti and also dismissing anyone questioning her education stems
from at least one possible reason and that is our most educated public figures have performed badly. In particular,
people in govt and media with high qualifications from abroad have disappointed.
The Macaulay Putris and Putras have heaped most scorn on ordinary Indians. Take
a look at Sagarika Ghose:
It doesn’t occur to Sagarika that she
spouts the same kind of filth that Mani Aiyar disburses with unrelenting
frequency. She and Mani Aiyar are from the same Oxbridge clan. Mani Aiyar has
been a darling at her channel for years and a regular panellist. Suddenly,
Sagarika discovers Mani Aiyar is “foul
mouthed” but didn’t have the guts to say it all this time when Congress was
in govt. And why the comparison with Mani Aiyar at all? Why not with Rajdeep
Sardesai or Barkha Dutt? They are all from the same clan but it is convenient
to trash Mani Aiyar now for Sagarika because he has become irrelevant.
Education is not a limited venture or
project. It’s a continuous life-long
process. The purpose of formal or informal education is to make our
children life-long learners. Any
system or policy that contributes to it can do so through many different people
with different education and abilities. Our job is to just keep learning. As for Smriti, water flows down,
performance counts. That’s it.
