Thursday, July 07, 2005

education. Right.

Every day I go to school, I begin to feel more and more that our education system is thoroughly redundant and past its usefulness. While the rest of the world embraces holistic education and all round performance, our system still focusses entirely on academic performance, and nothing else. Despite efforts(however lame they may be) to convince us otherwise, I as a student, can say that I am not in the least bit fooled. Everybody talks about the great Indian engineers and how hardworking they are. In our euphoria over this praise, we have conveniently overlooked all the other reputations wonderful Indian engineers posess. Right now, what we have is a society full of worker bees, with no pioneers to take us forward. Probably because we have no infrastructure to promote brilliance. Back here(yes,I intended to say 'back' here) difference is a bad word. Any student who is different is either dysfunctional or mad. By the time, a brilliant person passes out of school, he has been convinced that he's a lunatic and should stay home and never come out, or he manages to stifle himself to fit into society. Why should he be forced to do that? Indian engineers, are nothing but logs of wood for the mncs, they're equivalent to cheap natural resources, all the same, all equally efficient. Just like little robots. There are scores of people around who know the periodic table by heart, but don't know how to catch buses, or cook food, or even wash their own clothes. Why do you need to do well in school? To get admission in a good college. Why do you need to get into a good college? To earn money.The only reason we go to school and college now is to earn money, not to learn.

I just got off the phone with one of my friends who was in tears because she got shouted at by her tution teacher. Who the hell is a tution teacher? Why should we even need people like that?Why can't our system have the ability to educate us without the help of others? Why should people like that be given the chance to make us cry? I know what you're thinking,'what's wrong with this disrespectful little shit? How can he insult teachers like this?' Let me remind you, that I'm talking only about tution teachers here. School is the institution we put our trust in have faith in to deliver to us knowledge. Going to a tution teacher, is a proclamation of distrust in the school's ability to do its job, to give us knowledge. Our tution teachers aren't our real teachers, they're crutches to help us cope with the incompetence of our school teachers.

More than fifty-years back, we got our independence from the British, but to this date, the last vestige of our colonisation still remains. Our education system. England abandoned this system ages back, its only we, us innocent Indians, who are left with a decrepit and dysfunctional educational system. Why is it that there are so few Indian nobel laureates?(six, to be precise, and mother Teresa was educated in Macedonia) Because we're never taught to think of anything absent in our text books. No place for imagination, no room for vision. The CBSE is like a factory, churning out cheaply made BUT efficient robots that do whatever you tell them to, well. Nothing more,nothing less.

27 Comments:

Blogger Kaushik said...

Yeaahh!

I couldn't be more in agreement with you. Plus I'm in rejoicement that you posted something on your blog after this long.

I think tuition is the biggest indicator that our schooling system is a load of appendix. I don't call it cowdung because even cowdung is useful. Appendix, however, is completely redundant to us.

Write something similar for The Mad Herald.

Kaushik

9:54 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

blogging after a long time i see. glad to see you're back. anyway, i do aggree with you in some aspects. i aggree that things should change in india with respect to the education system and the way people look at education and its purpose. but you can't completely ignore the fact that Indians who are a product of this very education system have done extremely well and have quite clearly outperformed their counterparts from other parts of the world. you can not only judge an education system by how enjoyable people find it (though it is a criteria), you must also take a look at the people who have undergone the system, and where they are today. but like you say, definately some changes are absolutely necessary.

9:58 am  
Blogger Vinod said...

You're spot on, Shishir, or should i call you Shyshe? The Indian education system is good for nothing and being an engineer, i can tell you that most of my classmates know only just about enough technology to charge their cell phones.

But ya, we have been born with it and we have to live with it, praying that the system soon changes. The B-school culture is different and there, the focus is not on what you learn but how you learn it, which is how it should be.

Anyway, great post!! Keep writing!!

7:38 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think it's safe to say this is one thing that we COMPLETELY AGREE ON. I don't think standing up for what you feel makes you a 'disrespectful shit'. Rather, I think you are understanding the reality of the situation - that there are people around you who are getting pushed around by the system. And accept the fact that they are not entirely doing what they would've liked to do. And that is just an excuse. If you can't do what you really want to do in life, you can always use the indian education system as an excuse. That way you can always say "I've made it. I did just as the the country expected me to do. I have made it as a doctor (even though I wanted to be a writer). But that's ok. For earning money is the most important thing in life. Thta's what my school teachers told me". This might be something that many say. tO ME, IT WOULD BE A MATTER OF SHAME..............MORE ON THIS IN damndhruva.blogspot.com.......read on PN

7:45 am  
Blogger Kaushik said...

As a result of our education system, Indians turn out to be very hard-working, competitive and eventually, end up successful. The only problem is, that despite all these things, our education system doesn't teach much else of what is required in the real world. Indians will end up taking the easy way out, working hard at a secure desk job, earning a reasonable salary and being pretty complacent about it.

Very few of us will start a business, take risks, be inventive.
Inventiveness and creativity are things that the Indian education system does not know how to teach or even recognise and train.

Because of this, Indians end up on the lower end of things, however hardworking they may be.

Kaushik

8:20 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Going to a tution teacher, is a proclamation of distrust in the school's ability to do its job, to give us knowledge."

... very well said.

4:49 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"As a result of our education system, Indians turn out to be very hard-working, competitive and eventually, end up successful"
Indians turning out to be hardworking is not what the education system should be aiming at. It should aim at providing education useful in the future world and which can be used in the real world. Whether he is hard working or not is irrelevant. Do you mean to say that an education system is good because it's students are all hardowrking, even if they're unable to earn enough money?

12:49 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It is 2 in the night & I am making a lot of grammatical errors - in PKs blog also. Excuse my idiocy.....thank you

12:53 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree that very fact that the majority of students go for tuition just shows that schools are unable to to their job. It's disgusting. It's reached a point where teachers EXPECT students to be going for tuition, and decide to rush through topics since it'll be covered in detail in tuition, anyway. WHAT are we paying the school for exactly, then? desks and chairs? a registration with the Board? WHAT are the teachers getting paid for? Sitting and watching their students get high marks because they go for tuition? And then, when their "students" all do well in their exams as a result of their own slogging and their tuition, WHO gets the credit? The TEACHERS. The SCHOOL. And then more innocent parents hear about how brilliantly the students of this school have done their boards, and put their kids in this school, only to get ripped off again.
The Indian education system is reaching a point where it's going to collapse from its own sheer idiocy. No space for ideas, exploration, creativity, discovery... just remember what you've learnt in TUITION and go apply it on your Board paper. What brilliant training we receive, eh? What useful preparation for life.
Everything depends on those fractions of a mark which make your score higher than the rest. By how much? 0.03??? Sure, impressive. Wow.
There are schools where teachers ABUSE their students, and parents can do nothing about it. Why? because the student's internal marks depend on that teacher(the teacher can't be fired, because it's the middle of the TWELFTH STANDARD and it would be far too difficult to find a new teacher at short notice). Any student whose parents make a complaint will lose his or her internal marks. And that will affect his or her average. And that will affect which medical college he or she is admitted into. And that will affect his or her life forever? Really? Is it really worth that? Is a seat at a decent medical college worth hearing a student go "don't complain about my teacher and ruin my life for your damn ideals" to his or her parents, allowing them to only sit and watch in horror as their child is physically abused?
There are people who go "Yeah, we all crib about the educational system, we've been cribbing for generations, but hey, it works, doesn't it? Indians get good jobs abroad, don't they? "
Sure. it works. that's why the suicide rate among students in the 13-18 age group has shot up over the past five years. that's why there are so many people running away from home.
And getting good jobs abroad??? ABROAD??? If you really think you're getting something good out of this whole system (which I'm presuming all these wannabe engineers/doctors do, why else would they slog so hard?)(no offense to anyone)then shouldn't you want to contribute something to THIS country? Which gave you all this "education"? Why do you want to go crawling to some other country to do THEIR work?
wogai I think I've ranted enough.

4:37 am  
Blogger Kaushik said...

nr ki jai!!!
I agree with you on everything you said. One Correction though: Internal marks don't matter in the boards except for practicals where it's the school teachers who conduct them.

Kaushik

5:39 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

NR, I agree with you too. You have summed it all up superbly.

7:12 am  
Blogger Sthupit Girl said...

hey!

All of you seem to have taken a liking to blame the school. I'm writinn considering most of you aree the present 12th std at BVM.

Firstly, NO TEACHER will fail her student. No matter what you say to her. Citing an example, out of the 44 students in my batch, at least 30 of us snubbed Tirpu on her face. Some have been openly insulting. She didn't fail us. Infact she even helped out, i dnt knw how many students, during the board pracs. I agree she dsnt know what she's talking most of the time. i also agree i'd rather not have her as my teacher for the mere fact tht after a point foloowing what she calls physics, becomes tough.I'm also telling you she works her ass off when she prepares her papers, tests, etc. 70% of the stuff that has appeared in her papers came in the board paper.

Secondly, we pay the school for education. You wanna take a poll as to why people go for tuition? 90% say that it's for extra help. More tests, exams. 6-7% because they need the extra help. 3-4% go because the others go. If you think you have the will-power and you can work hard enough to see effective results, without any outside help, then do it.Don't blame the school because the others go for tuition.

I know its a pain in the butt, but the school can do only so much. extra classes, extra exams, etc. In fact if you venture north, there is no concept of schooling for the 11th and 12th. How many teachers would like to spend thier time correcting assignments she has no need to give other than to see you learn, chk tests, papers? They can jst give those 3 end of the term tests, leave you at the fate of these tuitions you seem to have so much faith in, and enjoy their salary.

Don't tell me the school dsnt teach you anything at all!! What do u do sitting there warming benches from 9-4 then? Other than tirpu tell me how many teachers really dnt know what to teach?

There are schools that make you work your ass off so bad that the students appear half dead. Why does a 0.003 mark affect you so much? It doesn't tell you that your better than your neighbor. It does affect your admission into college. i know its unjust. its stupid how a few hours of examination tend to decide your future...

THAT is where the problem is. Your not exactly stupid at the end of your 12 th std but that's what your treated like, the minute u step out of school.Just because someone got 0.03% more than you... In fact schools happen to be the only educational instituions today that do what they are supposed to do.

And dhruva dnt jst fight back because im writing it or that i think BVM is the best. You urself agreed that the we're in the best schooling environment possible.

8:49 am  
Blogger Kaushik said...

The problem with the teachers is that they are incompetent. However much they care, that doesn't change their levels of competence. And everyone agrees that the system sucks.

I'm going for these SAT classes. Once, we did these simple percentage problems, and I struggled to finish them. Percentage. And I sit in school learning how to do d/dx. And I'm quite sure that after the 12th I'll never use or see d/dx in my life, but I'll have to know percentage.

The schooling system just drills people's heads with information, most of it being pointless. They don't teach us any practical knowledge any more. Even the practical classes are far from practical. They're mostly based on theory.

Kaushik

9:28 am  
Blogger Sthupit Girl said...

THAT was what shishir wanted to point out,... we seem to have drifted from the topic...

...it makes no sense to study all this, it jst dsnt apply to the real world....!!

no denying that fact... also i have agreed all along that there is a slack. what we do most of the times is contribute to it...!!

10:07 am  
Blogger Kaushik said...

How do we contribute? By going to school. If we boycott school, maybe they'll change. Until then, we should just stay out of school. That's the most practical solution that students have.

Kaushik

4:03 am  
Blogger Sthupit Girl said...

i was disagreeing with what "nr" had to say abt schools and teachers, which you all agreed to...

i agree with CBSE not being good enough.. but also, aceept the faact that it is the best that we have...

5:31 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Preetika, what you are saying is that the teacher won't fail her student and therefore she is doing her job?
1) Maybe if the student isn't doing well, he or she NEEDS to repeat the year. Not failing the student means that he or she will need to slog even harder because he/she probably hasn't learnt the concepts that are necessary for the next year
2) Helping out during practicals... I don't know what exactly you mean there but I know of teachers who "help" their students during practicals to make it look like their students know their stuff. And that is just not ethical.
I'm not saying that you learn NOTHING at school, I am saying that you don't learn ENOUGH. Upto a point (last year), I would have agreed with you on the fact that you should not go for tuition if you think you can manage without it - in fact, that's what I did at my old school - I didn't go for tuition at all and I did pretty well (i guess) in the 10th. But now I've had to move to a new school, and here, they cover so LITTLE of the subject, just rushing through it, thinking that we all go for tuition and will be doing it in detail there anyway. But the thing is, since we're doing ISC, there aren't too many tuition teachers around, and everyone's still hunting for places to go for tuition. So the majority of the class is losing out because the teachers expect us to be going for tuition. And I'm not just guessing this, teachers have actually said it to us. most of us messed up our chemistry tests because the teacher thought we would have learnt certain concepts at tuition. THAT is why I blame the school. I'm not really sure how it is at BVM though.
Internal marks matter for your term marks which sometimes matter for your college admissions - there are a few colleges that take the term exams into account too. And anyway in ISC there is an internal assessment that matters for the boards. I didn't know about CBSE.

9:36 am  
Blogger Kaushik said...

Who's Nandini?
Remo's Nandy Sweet Candy?? (Anniyan Related Joke)

hehehe.

I guess all of us except pk more or less agree on the same thing, and pk agrees with some of what the rest of us are saying..

Kaushik

5:06 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry, I forgot to put my name on that comment. Dhruva how did you know it was me eh? nr=Nandini Ramesh = Shishir's friend = NOT Remo's Nandy Sweet Candy. I think I saw you last time they played at the unwind, Kaushik.
And where on earth is Shishir???

6:38 am  
Blogger Sthupit Girl said...

hello people,

will everyone stop examining what i say with a microscope?? all im saying is that... there are bad teachers and good teachers. Ethics also come into play, when u think a teacher will fail you just because you told the princi she lifted her hand on you. I' not saying she's gud if she dsnt fail you. If u deserve it u get it. That also applies when ur sitting in class. If u act like u can go to tuition and learn whatrever there is to learn, why shud the teacher bother. If u show no interest why shud she? Im not blaming anyone, im jjst asking you to look at ur behavior before u blame the teacher.

..there are bad teachers... if i may call 'em that..alot of them even ask you to go for tuition as if it were a part of your curiculum! i'm not denying the fact...

1:12 am  
Blogger Shyshe said...

Hey everbhuddy. The last time I saw my blog was when I made the post. Now I see 23 comments! Yippesh! Probably because most of us are in school right now and are very connected with this subject.Everybody has raised valid points(which I have not read completely,because I'm very tired right now).

THANKS everybody

9:04 am  
Blogger Jitterplate said...

hi shyshe!
i've been stalking you since i found you quite interesting. well, not physically. nice blog! what's the mad herald?

10:36 am  
Blogger Sthupit Girl said...

The Mad Herald, is a newspaper, written by Kaushik... to put it in a few words.. it's a magical world of nonsense... !

6:24 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

All the creativity and originality is sucked out of everyone while they chant out what they were taught to.
nice one,

10:05 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

wait a sec... is this shishir from bvm?

10:06 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Where did you find it? Interesting read » »

5:55 am  
Blogger Kaushik said...

Today Shishir is a top class academician completing PhD in Ivy League of America.

9:48 am  

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