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> It doesn’t measure intelligence or aptitude or ability to conduct research, it measures the ability to take a high stakes test effectively. You are being too

> It doesn’t measure intelligence or aptitude or ability to conduct research, it measures the ability to take a high stakes test effectively. You are being too harsh and dismissive. These high stake tests often are a good indicator of certain characteristics and aptitude in a student. These students work hard, study hard with a consistent methodology to understand the subject of the test. They know they are competing with others and the rewards are high. All this requires a disciplined personality and aptitude (there are different kinds of intelligence). And most of those who succeed in this actually do well in life. Ofcourse, it doesn't mean that your criticisms against the current model isn't justified or without merit on some aspects, providing you judge it from the right perspective. For example, India is a developing country and our education system isn't looking to identify and groom the next genius. We don't have the resources for that. So it is currently aimed to create an educated working professional class from all sections of our society that can uplift the economy of the country by generating wealth and decrease the growing wealth gap between the rich and the poor (to create an egalitarian society). And what do any industry look for - a hard working, consistent performer, who has the capability to understand how a system / process works and can adapt to it well. That is why indians, and asians in general, are known and respected for their work ethics around the world in most industries. But yes, people like you and me would struggle in this system, because the system isn't designed to accommodate the needs of those who aren't "normal" / psychologically healthy. (Hopefully that will change with economical growth and development in education). Note though that this doesn't mean that students who fail to adapt to this system all necessarily end up as failures in life. This is where the social culture also comes into picture in many asian societies. The family and social network of person in the society all try to help them too, both in trying to get access to best education they can afford and in trying to professionally help someone. (A good example of this is how parents make sacrifices and pay for their kids education. And thanks to that, the majority of us with a degree enter the professional world debt-free. (If you are in the US, can you afford to pay for your daughter's education and will you?) It's not all black and white as you think ...

selimthegrim 4y ago
Why all the resources concentrated on IITs then if you’re not looking to groom the next genius?
- webmobdev 4y ago
  I'd rather put it this way - it's because our resources are limited that we have so few IITs, IIScs, AIIMSs, NIDs, IIMs etc. As our economy has grown, we have established more of these institutes.
fnordpiglet 4y ago
You are of course, correct. I think it’s also an issue of overall scarcity and an enormous population scale for too few seats. It’s easier to scale standardized testing vs assessing the person in totality. Reality is when I grew up standardized testing made or broke a person, and I couldn’t go to school. I was lucky in that I had always programmed and landed a great job at Netscape. But Netscape was one of the first that hired uneducated engineers in the history of computing. Had I been 5 years older my life would be much different. I later went back to college and graduated highest honors from UIUC CS, but found a side door into the program owing to my standardized testing failures blocking the normal route through. Given my performance above all other students in my class, my standardized test scores had no correlation to my ultimate academic performance. Now there’s more focus on the total person and that’s both expensive, but I believe leads to overall better academic outcomes by selecting people individually for their ability to excel in the academic environment of the specific school. But give the sheer scale of the population applying in India assessing each individual is obviously on the surface impractical. This isn’t an inditement of India or it’s people or it’s system. But it’s also a tragedy. The world is sadly full of those. I would however hold my statement is still true if harsh. While high test scores may indicate an ability to work hard and ambition, low test scores don’t indicate the opposite. I would argue it’s more closely correlated to the ability to acquire funding for tutoring and a family without the need of your time to help the family. To your point my wife is from Southeast Asia and her family was extremely poor, but they had her siblings drop out of school and work to pay for her books and clothes and afford her time to study for the tests, which she passed top of her country. But her siblings paid for it with their future. I’m proud of her, but not of the system. Her siblings aren’t failures per se, they just never got an opportunity. But if you have applicants >> slots and an inability to scale a more accurate measure, a capricious but difficult criteria works. But I wouldn’t be particularly proud of that. Finally, I’d note that Asian society often doesn’t have much of a second chance path. My wife’s siblings even if they went back to school and were accepted wouldn’t be able to find jobs because they followed a non traditional path. This is sad, and I wonder how much faster their country would advance if they had a less rigid job path for their people. How many people are disenfranchised because they matured slower, experienced hardships or illness, or weren’t able to afford the costs of education yet? I’ll betcha is a very large number.

selimthegrim 4y ago

Why all the resources concentrated on IITs then if you’re not looking to groom the next genius?

webmobdev 4y ago
I'd rather put it this way - it's because our resources are limited that we have so few IITs, IIScs, AIIMSs, NIDs, IIMs etc. As our economy has grown, we have established more of these institutes.

fnordpiglet 4y ago

You are of course, correct. I think it’s also an issue of overall scarcity and an enormous population scale for too few seats. It’s easier to scale standardized testing vs assessing the person in totality. Reality is when I grew up standardized testing made or broke a person, and I couldn’t go to school. I was lucky in that I had always programmed and landed a great job at Netscape. But Netscape was one of the first that hired uneducated engineers in the history of computing. Had I been 5 years older my life would be much different. I later went back to college and graduated highest honors from UIUC CS, but found a side door into the program owing to my standardized testing failures blocking the normal route through. Given my performance above all other students in my class, my standardized test scores had no correlation to my ultimate academic performance. Now there’s more focus on the total person and that’s both expensive, but I believe leads to overall better academic outcomes by selecting people individually for their ability to excel in the academic environment of the specific school. But give the sheer scale of the population applying in India assessing each individual is obviously on the surface impractical. This isn’t an inditement of India or it’s people or it’s system. But it’s also a tragedy. The world is sadly full of those. I would however hold my statement is still true if harsh. While high test scores may indicate an ability to work hard and ambition, low test scores don’t indicate the opposite. I would argue it’s more closely correlated to the ability to acquire funding for tutoring and a family without the need of your time to help the family. To your point my wife is from Southeast Asia and her family was extremely poor, but they had her siblings drop out of school and work to pay for her books and clothes and afford her time to study for the tests, which she passed top of her country. But her siblings paid for it with their future. I’m proud of her, but not of the system. Her siblings aren’t failures per se, they just never got an opportunity. But if you have applicants >> slots and an inability to scale a more accurate measure, a capricious but difficult criteria works. But I wouldn’t be particularly proud of that. Finally, I’d note that Asian society often doesn’t have much of a second chance path. My wife’s siblings even if they went back to school and were accepted wouldn’t be able to find jobs because they followed a non traditional path. This is sad, and I wonder how much faster their country would advance if they had a less rigid job path for their people. How many people are disenfranchised because they matured slower, experienced hardships or illness, or weren’t able to afford the costs of education yet? I’ll betcha is a very large number.