I was born and brought up in Mumbai, educated at Bombay International School (B.I.S.) and then later at Cathedral School. We used American text books, only had exams after the fifth standard, rarely were expected to memorize material, and spent much of our time involved with projects and other activities that emphasized creativity and independent thinking.

B.I.S. has indeed grown more exam oriented over time. My parents were nevertheless sufficiently concerned about my future job prospects and so moved me to Cathedral school in the ninth standard, in order to better prepare me for the school leaving examination.

Cathedral was a much larger, impersonal, school, whereas being at BIS was almost like belonging to a family. But more importantly Cathedral, which is one of the oldest and most prestigious mission-run schools in Mumbai, still faithfully adhered to the old ‘British’ system of education. This colonial legacy emphasized respect for authority and a somewhat mechanical accumulation if information by the student. We were dictated notes in class, had regular tests every few weeks, and were discouraged from asking too many questions. I suspect that students in most of Mumbai’s schools learned in a similar system, and continue to do so today. This system was completely geared towards taking exams, and I miss very much the freedom that I had enjoyed at B.I.S. I never again had the opportunity to do a project on my own in school, and in fact would have to wait seven years till my senior thesis at I.I.T., Mumbai, before I would do independent study again.

After completing my I.C.S.E. from Cathedral in 1978. I did my H.S.C from Jai Hind College, then my B. Tech. in Civil Engineering from I.I.T Mumbai, There was a continued emphasis on exams and the development of technical skills, with little or no attention played to independent thinking and creativity. While I had the advantage of interacting with some of the brightest individuals I have ever met at I.I.T., I still felt stifled by the rigidity of the system. While I.I.T. taught me to think analytically, it did not teach me to ask questions or to be curious about the world. It was only when I travelled to the U.S. for my postgraduate studies that I felt as if I had finally been set free. I could immerse myself in interesting work, feel the joy of discovery, and to enjoy the satisfaction of learning for myself, just as I had in my early years at B.I.S.

Now, many years later and after many twists and turns in my career, I teach economics at the University of Pennsylvania, an elite Ivy League college in the United States. This college attracts the very best undergraduate students from the U.S., and draws graduate students from around the world.

Here I will focus attention on the American undergraduates that I teach. I teach a higher level course in development economics each year, which is typically taken by students in the final year of the four-year undergraduate program.

While the American system may teach students to ask questions, it does not drill them in the techniques that are required to answer these questions.

To my mind, the ideal educational system would fall somewhere between the Indian and the American systems as they exist today. While U.S. has attempted to overcome the perceived weaknesses in its educational system, I am unaware of a similar response in our own system,

Strategy, that could be adopted by a school on its own, would change the system in the early years, up to standard five for instance would still allow for creative exploration in the early years, with a switch the more competitive current system in the higher standards. We lose the competitiveness and the rigor that we have built into our educational system. At the same time I think that we owe our children opportunity to test the limits of their creative potential and live the fullest.