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India has exam system, not education system

3 points by Garbage 16y ago

kamaal 16y ago
As an Indian myself, let me explain how things work here. Like everywhere else there is a regular mix of people in India. But what one needs to really understand is that sheer volume of people in India highlights the rat race that exists in all societies at a level of contrast that attracts these articles. In most cases, the people are from humble beginnings or from small towns and cities. And the effects of the pre FDI days still continue to exist. The mentality among parents is that opportunities are scanty, hence need to be treated precious. This leads a lot of conservative thinking. Actually right from early days of our post-independence era, the only way some one could really well off financially was to either be a doctor, engineer or do a real big business with a lot of initial investment. The other options remained joining the military or civil services. Having said all that opportunities, both in terms of jobs and college seats were very little. Most people in the previous generation have either worked in process based factories, or small time shops like grocery shops or other places. There fore the perception automatically is "study well for a seat in a professional college else you are doomed". Now opportunities being scanty and people looking for them being more, automatically makes people go to the limits to get what they want to get. Hence just to pass exams there are books, guides and tutorials which focus on only scoring marks! Add to that the IT boom has led to opening of "only on paper" kind of colleges where people enroll just to get a degree. I hope by now most people understand why its important. Its important as we have linked education to money, jobs and earnings. The purpose of education is to learn and use the learning to add some value or what pg calls create wealth. Whereas by linking education to all the material stuff we automatically create a rat race. The solution is simple, award work not words(Degree abbreviations) next to one's name. Jobs must be given to one's who can 'do', not the ones who just 'know'. Having said all that, I can honestly say there are a lot of good people who make genuine attempt to learn and build stuff. Its just that our country is really big. And like everywhere else, it will take time to overcome this huge inertia and bring in education reforms. Government is already working towards that, they have introduced laws to bring in Grades in place of Marks and much more is in progress.

3 points by Garbage 16y ago

As an Indian myself, let me explain how things work here. Like everywhere else there is a regular mix of people in India. But what one needs to really understand is that sheer volume of people in India highlights the rat race that exists in all societies at a level of contrast that attracts these articles. In most cases, the people are from humble beginnings or from small towns and cities. And the effects of the pre FDI days still continue to exist. The mentality among parents is that opportunities are scanty, hence need to be treated precious. This leads a lot of conservative thinking. Actually right from early days of our post-independence era, the only way some one could really well off financially was to either be a doctor, engineer or do a real big business with a lot of initial investment. The other options remained joining the military or civil services. Having said all that opportunities, both in terms of jobs and college seats were very little. Most people in the previous generation have either worked in process based factories, or small time shops like grocery shops or other places. There fore the perception automatically is "study well for a seat in a professional college else you are doomed". Now opportunities being scanty and people looking for them being more, automatically makes people go to the limits to get what they want to get. Hence just to pass exams there are books, guides and tutorials which focus on only scoring marks! Add to that the IT boom has led to opening of "only on paper" kind of colleges where people enroll just to get a degree. I hope by now most people understand why its important. Its important as we have linked education to money, jobs and earnings. The purpose of education is to learn and use the learning to add some value or what pg calls create wealth. Whereas by linking education to all the material stuff we automatically create a rat race. The solution is simple, award work not words(Degree abbreviations) next to one's name. Jobs must be given to one's who can 'do', not the ones who just 'know'. Having said all that, I can honestly say there are a lot of good people who make genuine attempt to learn and build stuff. Its just that our country is really big. And like everywhere else, it will take time to overcome this huge inertia and bring in education reforms. Government is already working towards that, they have introduced laws to bring in Grades in place of Marks and much more is in progress.