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As someone who knows nothing about the Indian education system, can you clarify? Do Indian children have their major chosen for them via parents, tests, or adm

As someone who knows nothing about the Indian education system, can you clarify? Do Indian children have their major chosen for them via parents, tests, or administrators? Or do they decide on their own focus, but prior to college? I would also offer that the article isn't complaining that graduates are not passionate about their work; it's complaining that they appear to have taken very little away from their education at all. Having less volition intuitively explains a lack of passion, but I'm not convinced that it does a great job explaining a lack of competence -- passion can be replaced by discipline and social pressure. I find the article's description of problems with teaching, school culture, and school curricula to be more obviously plausible.

w1ntermute 16y ago
> Do Indian children have their major chosen for them via parents, tests, or administrators? Parents. Their future job is usually decided for them before they're even born. The number of people who go into a particular profession because they enjoy it is exceedingly small.
- bdhe 16y ago
  > Parents. Their future job is usually decided for them before they're even born. This is patently untrue. Parents usually have high expectations of stable, well-earning jobs, but in no way decide before they are even born. It might apply to the minority of businessmen who insist that their children carry on the "family business", but even that is rare.
- movingahead 16y ago
  As J K Rowling puts it brilliantly, there is an expiry date on how long you can keep blaming your parents for everything that goes wrong. http://www.ted.com/talks/jk_rowling_the_fringe_benefits_of_failure.html http://www.ted.com/talks/jk_rowling_the_fringe_benefits_of_f... We lack a culture where hacking and playing around with things is encouraged.
  - sparkymat 16y ago
    I agree. A lot of blame lies with the educational system which promotes rote learning and at times, even penalizes thinking out of the box.
shriphani 16y ago
They typically take a test. The choice of majors is pretty broad for those who place first. They end up taking CS, EE and other popular majors. Those who placed in the 2000+ ranks get to pick from an increasingly smaller pool. By the time they get to assigning spots for those who placed 5000 and above, you are probably left with textiles, metallurgy and some other arcane fields.
bdhe 16y ago
> Having less volition intuitively explains a lack of passion, but I'm not convinced that it does a great job explaining a lack of competence -- passion can be replaced by discipline and social pressure. Yes, my point was that it would be of note for people discussing the Indian education system to keep in mind the way people go about choosing their subjects. I didn't say that it was the primary cause or even directly contributing to the lack of competence.
adhipg 16y ago
As stated above, most colleges in India do not allow you to pick subjects and customize your course. Thus, all you chose is a 'major' (the degree) and the rest (the subjects and curriculum) has been chosen for you by the college. Most of the times a student's major is selected for him/her with the following preference: 1. What's available in the most reputed college nearby. 2. What the parents perceive to be the best degree to pursue (usually engineers/doctors followed by other streams based on the general consensus of their friends/peers/relatives). Children almost never decide their own focus - at least they never did say about ten years ago. Children here make the first choice of their courses to study in High School when they are 16. That's almost too young to decide what you want to be. You can be certain that almost every Indian student who took Biology in their High School tried to be a doctor and every student who had Maths and Physics took the exams for entrance to Engineering colleges. That's why we see Indian engineers have a very skewed quality to quantity ratio - many of them never wanted to be engineers in the first place! This can mostly be attributed to our parents growing up in an (almost) socialist republic where doctors and engineers were the best career avenues after the government. However, things are changing slowly and parents are being very liberal with the career choices of their kids and getting them to explore different options.
- JonnieCache 16y ago
  >As stated above, most colleges in India do not allow you to pick subjects and customize your course. Thus, all you chose is a 'major' (the degree) and the rest (the subjects and curriculum) has been chosen for you by the college. >Children here make the first choice of their courses to study in High School when they are 16. That's almost too young to decide what you want to be. This is exactly the same as in britain. India inherited most of it's bureaucracy from britain.
  - metageek 16y ago
    But was it that way in Britain before India became independent in 1947? I thought the British "slot everybody into a job" system was part of post-WWII socialism.
sid6376 16y ago
Parents choose based on what they think is the safest option for their kids. To put the blame entirely on them will not be fair. One of the most interesting things I find about the American way of life is, people start taking up jobs from a very young age. IMO this helps them explore options and also discover their own interests and even aptitude for a particular line of work. Also in the Indian way of life hobbies always come second to academics.
- sparkymat 16y ago
  Nowadays, more and more Indian parents seem to be receptive of "unconventional" career choices. Not saying that it's common, or that most don't push their kids towards engineering/medicine, but the situation seems to have improved over the last decade or two. However, you still hear tragic tales of kids who were forced into a field in which they hold no interest.

w1ntermute 16y ago

> Do Indian children have their major chosen for them via parents, tests, or administrators? Parents. Their future job is usually decided for them before they're even born. The number of people who go into a particular profession because they enjoy it is exceedingly small.

bdhe 16y ago
> Parents. Their future job is usually decided for them before they're even born. This is patently untrue. Parents usually have high expectations of stable, well-earning jobs, but in no way decide before they are even born. It might apply to the minority of businessmen who insist that their children carry on the "family business", but even that is rare.
movingahead 16y ago
As J K Rowling puts it brilliantly, there is an expiry date on how long you can keep blaming your parents for everything that goes wrong. http://www.ted.com/talks/jk_rowling_the_fringe_benefits_of_failure.html http://www.ted.com/talks/jk_rowling_the_fringe_benefits_of_f... We lack a culture where hacking and playing around with things is encouraged.
- sparkymat 16y ago
  I agree. A lot of blame lies with the educational system which promotes rote learning and at times, even penalizes thinking out of the box.

shriphani 16y ago

They typically take a test. The choice of majors is pretty broad for those who place first. They end up taking CS, EE and other popular majors. Those who placed in the 2000+ ranks get to pick from an increasingly smaller pool. By the time they get to assigning spots for those who placed 5000 and above, you are probably left with textiles, metallurgy and some other arcane fields.

bdhe 16y ago

> Having less volition intuitively explains a lack of passion, but I'm not convinced that it does a great job explaining a lack of competence -- passion can be replaced by discipline and social pressure. Yes, my point was that it would be of note for people discussing the Indian education system to keep in mind the way people go about choosing their subjects. I didn't say that it was the primary cause or even directly contributing to the lack of competence.

adhipg 16y ago

As stated above, most colleges in India do not allow you to pick subjects and customize your course. Thus, all you chose is a 'major' (the degree) and the rest (the subjects and curriculum) has been chosen for you by the college. Most of the times a student's major is selected for him/her with the following preference: 1. What's available in the most reputed college nearby. 2. What the parents perceive to be the best degree to pursue (usually engineers/doctors followed by other streams based on the general consensus of their friends/peers/relatives). Children almost never decide their own focus - at least they never did say about ten years ago. Children here make the first choice of their courses to study in High School when they are 16. That's almost too young to decide what you want to be. You can be certain that almost every Indian student who took Biology in their High School tried to be a doctor and every student who had Maths and Physics took the exams for entrance to Engineering colleges. That's why we see Indian engineers have a very skewed quality to quantity ratio - many of them never wanted to be engineers in the first place! This can mostly be attributed to our parents growing up in an (almost) socialist republic where doctors and engineers were the best career avenues after the government. However, things are changing slowly and parents are being very liberal with the career choices of their kids and getting them to explore different options.

JonnieCache 16y ago
>As stated above, most colleges in India do not allow you to pick subjects and customize your course. Thus, all you chose is a 'major' (the degree) and the rest (the subjects and curriculum) has been chosen for you by the college. >Children here make the first choice of their courses to study in High School when they are 16. That's almost too young to decide what you want to be. This is exactly the same as in britain. India inherited most of it's bureaucracy from britain.
- metageek 16y ago
  But was it that way in Britain before India became independent in 1947? I thought the British "slot everybody into a job" system was part of post-WWII socialism.

sid6376 16y ago

Parents choose based on what they think is the safest option for their kids. To put the blame entirely on them will not be fair. One of the most interesting things I find about the American way of life is, people start taking up jobs from a very young age. IMO this helps them explore options and also discover their own interests and even aptitude for a particular line of work. Also in the Indian way of life hobbies always come second to academics.

sparkymat 16y ago
Nowadays, more and more Indian parents seem to be receptive of "unconventional" career choices. Not saying that it's common, or that most don't push their kids towards engineering/medicine, but the situation seems to have improved over the last decade or two. However, you still hear tragic tales of kids who were forced into a field in which they hold no interest.