Opinion India’s classrooms face a polarisation test

Educational institutions have the responsibility to create neutral environments where students can learn to appreciate differences and develop skills needed to navigate a polarised world. As elite institutes like Harvard and Columbia in the US and Ashoka and JNU in India are dragged into mainstream news, we must think of how, as a society, we can maintain an independent education system that can uphold its ability to shape independent thought.

We live in a world where there is a scarcity of opportunities in education. A world where admission to the best institutes — whether it is IIT or Harvard — feels like a war zone. Competition in India is higher than at any other time in history because of a growing young aspirational population. This year, more than 2 million people sat the entrance exam for medical college, competing for just 140,000 places, while more than 1 million students sat the engineering exam in the hope of getting one of the 10,000 places at an IIT. This mad rush translates into the boom of towns like Kota that have built an entire economy around coaching classes.

Indians pursuing elite US institutes go through a similar struggle. Getting into an Ivy League college becomes their ultimate life goal and definition of success. With the current fluctuations in the US immigration laws, these students now find themselves on edge about their long-term prospects. It is therefore an appropriate time to pause and reflect on what we are really seeking from these elite institutes and do they provide us with the same.

The fundamental requirement is a good education. Therefore, the question is what comprises a good education and what is its end goal. The most obvious answer is that education helps us earn a living. We learn skills that we can use to make ourselves useful in society and, in turn, get paid for. The more complex the skill, the higher the compensation. But this gets infinitely more complicated to quantify when we talk about nuanced skills like management or leadership, which are a stronghold of elite universities. Businessmen, politicians and spiritual leaders, all of whom are at the forefront of shaping society, are often self-taught or have minimal formal education.

Does going to an elite college then guarantee success? Would you consider Donald Trump, a graduate of Wharton, to be a role model, or does his story remind us that elite degrees don’t always equate to strong character and responsible leadership? What about Bill Gates, who dropped out of Harvard but transformed global technology? Or, Dhirubhai Ambani, who never earned a formal degree yet built one of India’s largest business empires.

Clearly, then, the link between a formal education at an elite university and success is not causal but correlational. Which brings us to a deeper question: What leads to success? The purpose of a good education must go beyond employability. A truly enriching education teaches us to question the world around us. It nurtures curiosity, independent thought, logic and empathy to forge our own paths of inquiry and discovery. In 2025, as artificial intelligence redefines skills, it may be time to reimagine what “good education” looks like.

In today’s world of hyper-exposure, an educated population is also the cornerstone of a democracy. As media globally gets increasingly polarised, the ability to sift through misinformation, spot hidden biases, and ask the right questions is even more important. This ability empowers citizens to choose wisely in elections and hold the powerful accountable.

The answer is simple: A good education teaches us to think critically and ask the right questions, even the unpopular ones, which in turn enables us to accurately interpret the world around us and collectively shape it for the better.

The writer is director, RPG Foundation