Measurement of the Maturity of a Person

Maturity is the overall potential of a person which is reflected in his wisdom and sacrifices. The sacrifices should have greater weight as compared to the accumulations in defining and measuring the maturity. Before entrusting any responsibilities to a person usually his maturity level is examined by expert(s). The elections, interview panels, project/work assignment among colleagues/family members etc. processes involves the maturity estimation. We all regularly do this job. Sometimes mistakes happen, we learn from it and move ahead. As such no algorithm for estimating and analyzing the aforesaid quantities is available thus machines are unable to help us, though some researchers are trying to develop it. This task can be simplified by discretizing the maturity into different levels and applying the principles of cognitive and behavioural science thereon. To this end, following levels of maturity may be considered;

• Zeroth: The abilities gained by a person for benefiting himself should define the zeroth level of the maturity. From birth to death the mind of an individual (including animals) train itself for understanding the world and learning the skills to survive. Unfortunately the people who suffer from the mental retardation (intellectual disability) disease can not avail this natural opportunity. Their thoughts, actions and understandings may be considered to be zero index value at this zeroth level of maturity, as they can neither make any positive contribution nor they can undertake any negative action. In accordance with behavioral/ professional/ administrative and similar skills learned by a person he earns proportionate index value at this 0th level.
• First: Respecting, loving, sacrificing for the parents, siblings, wife, children and close relatives should be accounted for this level. The children become angry whenever parents deny fulfilling their demands. They refused to understand the genuine problems or the experience based futuristic view of the parents. Sometimes it forced the parents to scold the children too. As the child grows older he fully understands the parents views/spirits and vows to respect/ serve them unconditionally for their life. This is the 1st level of maturity which is usually attained by a person somewhere during 12-20 years of his/her age, though some people die without achieving it. The general observation shows that several uneducated poor people (who may have very low index value in zeroth level of maturity) attains the 1st maturity level whereas many 'learned' and rich persons could not touch the mark e.g. as per the documentary facts Albert Einstein who was extraordinary at 0th level should have very poor score in this 1st level.
• Second: The selfless services of a person to the alma mater, friends, nation, world and humanity should be considered for this level. For higher studies everyone spends three to five years at the institutes/colleges wherein he/she need to live with new people. They earned many sweet and bitter experiences in this crucial period of their life. At the time of leaving the institute if a person also leaves behind all the bitterness, accepts all people as friends and acknowledges the institute for helping him in successful completion of the course then it indicates that he is all set to attain the second level of maturity, which is accomplished whenever he starts helping his friends and the alma mater in moving upward. Certainly, there is no way of reaching the 2nd level without attaining the aforesaid 1st level of maturity.
• There should be five levels of the maturity, however at this point of time these are too blurred to find suitable words for expressing the remaining 3rd, 4th and 5th levels.

Several unbiased individuals may be asked to examine the thoughts and actions of the person over a period of time as may be relevant to 0th, 1st and 2nd levels. Each of these examiner should assign some index value (positive/negative/zero)  and these samples may be statistically processed for finding the useful result.  No alert should be given to the person who is under the examination otherwise he shall bias himself. It is something in accordance with the fact that, 'the presence of observer itself causes the system to act differently'.

All segments of the society should grow together

Many Indian companies/MNCs pay huge salary to their employees with the understanding that they should themselves take care of their health, schooling of their children, buy homes, etc. This model suffers from some fundamental flaws and can not deliver desired results in Indian scenario. The newly established companies have brought thousands of additional number of people in a few cities without creating the additional infrastructure. It has created additional load on the existing infrastructure which has enhanced the cost of essential facilities. The higher salaried persons captures these facilities and it become out of reach of original residents of these cities for none of their fault. A few decades back huge disparity in the earnings of different people living in same geographical area gave birth to Communism. As on date the Communism has already been proved to be a failed philosophy, thus a new system within the framework of the capitalism should be developed such that the talents should get their due recognition as well as the basic facilities should become easily available to all citizens. The people of India must understand that if we do not appropriately address pay disparity issue at this point of time then the current rapid progress round will make a large number of people poorer and the entire wealth shall be accumulated by a few smart persons.

The first step in this direction should be that the big companies should switch back to the older models of TATA's/Birla's/PSUs by building good schools, hospitals, residences, clubs and other relevant premises for the overall growth of its employees. Companies may hire experts/outsources for running/maintaining these facilities ensuring subsidized rates to its users. Such infrastructures will also add value to the cities and bring better opportunity to its residents and adjoining areas. Moving one step ahead these companies should build and offer homes to their working employees in the close vicinity of their office and after retirement they may be shifted to another colony by transferring the ownership of the homes originally built and maintained by the company. Such provisions shall certainly enhance the productivity and overall growth of the country.

India must develop an ideal model for overall welfare of all segments of the society which can be replicated by other countries which shall bring prosperity to everyone.

Graduands should know their debts and payback options

On the convocation eve while addressing the outgoing batch of the ECE department I urged the graduands to step out from the IIITA main gate and raise their head to read the institute's message, 'Go Forth to Serve the Nation'. Renowned spiritual Guru Sri Sri Ravishankar tweeted and I quote, "All the talent that you possess are for the benefits of others. Put them to good use". This moral obligation has greater appeal for graduands of the premier institute like IIITA where it costs about Rs. 4 Lakh per student per year which is much greater than the fee paid by the students. Acting honestly the graduands should pay their debts by choosing one or more of the following ways,

• First of all the graduands need to attain the second level of maturity which is a reflection of the positive thoughts/actions undertaken by the graduands for uplifting their alma mater. We should recall that after achieving first level of maturity we understood the motive behind the parent's scoldings or their denial for something and developed greater respect for them. No one can disown the parents as well as the alma mater. It may be parent's home, institute's campus, office or any other place, the sweet and bitter experiences always go side by side. The graduands must forget the bitterness as may be experienced by them during their stay at the institute and they must restrain themselves from the activities which may defame the institute.
• They should thoroughly discuss various shortcomings of the institute among themselves but not in public domain. The constructive suggestions/recommendations like upgrading the curriculum, lab work, hostel facilities, the campus life, etc. should be communicated to the institute. In accordance with the principles of the closed loop control systems, just right feedback is needed for incorporating the corrections towards meeting the goal. 
• They should excel at their work place. It may bring better job opportunities to the students of IIITA in the subsequent years. This chain reaction shall create dominance of the institute in various companies/organizations which may bring several benefits to the institute/nation.
• They should evolve themselves as entrepreneurs and directly serve the nation by creating more jobs and accelerating the GDP. Especially, the expertise in the field of ECE should be utilized for developing innovative products for commercial and defense applications. Several motivational schemes have already been started by the government of India for supporting this cause.
• They may go abroad for higher studies and contribute in scientific findings and/or developing the technologies which may serve the humanity, the world thus the nation. Abiding by the laws of the country wherever someone lives and working for its interests must be the highest priorities to everyone irrespective of his/her origin/belonging/faith. Being best brain of India such aspirants should follow/create those paths which are beneficial to their current country as well as India.
• As the bottom line, all graduands should contribute something to the institute in one way or the other e.g. funding for building new labs/infrastructure, establishing chair positions, visiting the institute for imparting specialized training to the junior batches of the institute, appropriately responding to various queries raised by general people on different social networks, etc.

We have availed those privileges which the nation is not able to offer to each and every student of the country. Someone may argue that he/she had earned it by qualifying the tough competition, but organizing such competitions itself is the most sad part. It is not the selection but the rejection of more or less equally worthy candidates. Ideally, every student should get the best opportunity of learning with similar facilities. Collective effort is needed for achieving this target.

'Jack of all' should be delivered by the school education

India is following the 10+2+3/4/5 education system in which students study a variety of subjects up to 10th standard, then they need to choose a specialized stream e.g. Maths, Bio, Commerce etc. in 11th standard and continue with their choice in 12th standard as well, which completes their schooling. For joining a 3/4/5 year graduation/dual degree UG-PG programme in premier institutes, the outgoing school students need to appear in various competitive Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ) based examinations of their chosen streams. Apparently, the job guarantee after course completion makes the life of successful students very smooth, but those large number of students who could not cross the barrier, have to struggle hard, perhaps very hard. The statistics shows that several students of premier institutes prefer to switch to a different profession as compared to their area of specialization. It gives an indication that blocking the choice of profession just after 10th standard is too early. It has many serious long term consequences as well. It seems that the current 10+2+3/4/5 system has failed to address the basic requirements of our society, in fact it has created new problems, and hence we should think /debate for developing a better education system e.g. 12+3/4/5.

Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ) based examination for selecting the candidates is another serious problem. Although MCQ is a quicker way of evaluating the candidates, which is a primary need for entrance/selection examinations, but its fundamental limitations are causing some serious intellectual and social problems. The ability to quickly pick the correct answer from the given options is needed for qualifying the MCQ examination. Hence, coaching classes are teaching several shortcuts to the students instead of comprehensively explaining the fundamental concepts, which is usually an integral part of school education. For countering it, the examiners are increasing the complexity level of the problems and/or span of syllabus but it has further enhanced unnecessary burden on innocent children and boosted coaching class culture. Keeping everything on stake our children are spending more time on learning the skills of quickly solving MCQs without fully understanding the problems. The private coaching classes are fooling the people and making huge money; Government should either ban or ask them to operate as non-profit NGOs.

More important aspect of the problem is that our children are losing their golden years of schooling wherein they could have studied many fundamental subjects; learnt the qualities like sportsmanship, leadership; participate in co-curricular activities and gained crucial skills for handling the real life problems. This huge cost is being paid for learning a skill which has no use at all in the life where no options as solution are available for the problems. Moreover, it is counterproductive too as the rigorous over-training of solving MCQs ruins the natural talent of using analytical analysis in finding out of box solution for the problems and/or elaborates their thoughts with appropriate justification. Shouldn't we abandon MCQ and develop a new framework for conducting entrance examination using Information Technology?

The candidates who have undergone specialized training at coaching classes perform better in MCQ exams thus more or less it has become a compulsion for all parents to send their child to these coaching classes. It has created additional financial burden on the parents and ultimately tremendous pressure on children. Those who failed in the qualifying examination starts feeling that they have lost everything as people refuse to acknowledge their sincere attempt. Majority of those candidates who get admission in premier institute also face many problems as they were not properly groomed due to skipping of regular school education. Further, instead of sincerely learning the core issues and design aspects of various technologies, they just want to qualify the subjects and devote their time in preparing for placements as they have to pay back the money spent by their parents on them. They are unknowingly preparing themselves for becoming servants/slaves as they are not learning the skills needed for becoming innovator/entrepreneur/leader.

The overall evaluation suggests that 10+2+3/4/5 system is creating a generation which has very less opportunities of developing fundamental personal qualities of building a good character and gaining emotional maturity. This may be one of the reasons behind significant growth in depression cases. The parents, teachers, the society and the governments need to share the blame of ruining the capabilities of our children. We all should act immediately for initiating discussions/debate on appropriate platforms and build pressure on the government for including this issue in its priorities. To begin with, I want to share an underdeveloped proposal for positive criticism in order to develop a robust framework for educating future generations.
Students should study all subjects up to 12th (instead of 10th) standard, then there should be a single entrance examination for all types of graduation/UG-PG dual degree (4/5 yrs) programmes of all the institutes leading to various professions like administration, politics, defense, engineering, medical, commerce/accountancy, management, journalism, law, sports etc. The students who fail to qualify (or gets dropped out after getting admission) should be associated with various ITIs/Polytechnic/NGOs/Social organizations, etc. for learning various skills at highly subsidized rates. And yes, the Information Technology can give us the platform for facilitating all the aforesaid functions. However, designing of new UG programme e.g. in administration, in defense etc, bringing suitable changes in curriculum/grading system of schools, etc. many more relevant issues need thorough discussion and application of mind of the experts and eminent people.