Where are we heading?

One of my cousins finished his 12th standard exams recently. This is an excerpt from our conversation:

Him: I hardly attended college. I don’t even know where my classroom was

Me: Why did you not do so?

Him: Because no one else attended college.

Me: Then what did they do?

Him: Everyone goes to coaching classes.

Me: Didn’t the college say anything?

Him: No. There are only a few colleges that strongly adhere to the attendance regulations.

Me: Why did you not join such a college?

Him: No one joins such colleges.

This is only one particular case. But this is prevalent all over the state. You never know whom to blame. The colleges say that they cannot do anything as the coaching classes urge students to not attend college. The coaching classes say that they merely teach because nothing is taught at colleges. The system is like a snake biting its own tail off. And ultimately, the snake is itself harmed!

When I was at school, only those students who were weak at a particular subject would take tuitions. Nowadays, there are not too many people, who do not enrol themselves for these coaching classes, in their 12th standards. We were visiting a few colleges where my cousin would have liked to take admission into. So one of the Principals asked me where I was studying. I told him that I had secured my admission into IIT Madras. The first question he asked was-“Which coaching class did you attend?”. It seems taken for granted that everyone who gets into IITs does it through coaching classes. The other day during my IIT counselling, when I had to get some papers signed by the chairman of the JEE, he asked me whether coaching classes had influenced the order of choices for the various branches. I told him that I had not attended any this year. At this, he seemed pleasantly surprised.

Most of these coaching classes are heavily exam oriented, and do not focus on teaching the subjects, instead focussing on examination techniques. They take in students in hordes. They sing success stories about how many people did well because of them. They never talk about the number of people who do not do well. They totally refuse to own up to a student’s failure, saying that if someone else could do it, why not him/her.

I find this system really unfair for those, who come from financially weaker sections of the society. The coaching classes charge high fees. Usually around Rs. 50,000 for a two years classroom program, which is by no means a small amount. I have heard of some such “classes” that charge even more. If the colleges do not teach, what can such people do?

This does not end here. Coaching classes continue for engineering courses. I was surprised of hearing of this at first, but find it very common nowadays. The other day, I made some rather sarcastic comments about people going to such classes for engineering to a friend. It turned out that she was attending such classes too. I was in an uneasy situation, but then, I merely said what I felt. Who know, at this rate, they might even have classes on how to do a job, how to date, how to spend one’s first night… LOL. The possibilities are endless. All I can say is God save the system!

One Nation, one system!

With a debate raging in Maharashtra on the 90-10 quota for admission to junior colleges, the Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal came out with a series of proposals, to reform the aging education system in the country. India is a big country, with a number of states, and most of them have their own education boards. Each board has their own rules, and often, the rules are arbitrarily set, and is the source of controversies in many situations. Among some of the recent cases, the Maharashtra government has proposed a 90% reservation in junior colleges for students from state board schools, and the remaining for students from CBSE and ICSE boards. This percentage has been based on the percentile stats across the states, but has caused a stir in the Urban areas, where a greater percentage of students go to schools from these other boards. In a number of states, the local language is forced upon the students, and this can be a big problem for students, who move to that state at a stage, where it would be difficult to pick up the new language.

Sibal has called for the unification of all these boards, so as to have a uniform system throughout the country. Sibal has also proposed to do away with the 10th board exams, which he considers unnecessary. Quoting Sibal, “Education is not meant to traumatise the parents and students. This is unacceptable”. He also proposes to have grades for these examinations, instead of a numerical score.

I feel that this is a wonderful move, and will be very helpful for students as well as parents, who are often more concerned than the students themselves( ask me about that aspect :) ). Another area where this will help would be in the admissions for institutes of higher education, which has become a rat race of tremendous proportions. I have just come out of this rat race, and hopefully, I am one of the last few, who have to go through this stage. The situation may be bad until 10th standard, it worsens after that, because this is the stage where it really matters. All states have their own entrance examinations, with different rules for each. I know of many people who found it difficult to get admission in higher colleges, solely because they had not stayed in that state for a certain number of years( a lot of states have rules, that allow a student to take up such exams only if he/she has lived in that state for a certain period of time, usually 6-8 years minimum ). I find this very unfair and hope that it gets sorted out with the reforms.

Another thing that I have observed is that in many states, the board exams in 12th don’t really matter. It is the various other entrance examinations that count. I have seen many cases where colleges have tie-ups with coaching institutes, wherein the colleges give complete attendance for the student, without him/her having to attend college, leaving him/her free to devote all of his time towards these competitive exams. I know of many people who have gone through their 11th-12th years attending college only for their practicals. The system is prevalent in Kota, Hyderabad and a few other places, from what I hear. What is more alarming is that many of these coaching classes follow a heavily examination oriented approach, which turns out bad for a number of students in the years to come.

I sincerely hope that this is only the beginning, and the reforms actually get carried out, which would certainly help students, as well as parents, and lead to the overall development of the country.

Is this a good move

• 
  
  It is a brilliant move. It should have happenned a long time ago


• 
  
  It is a good move. Board Exams should remain though


• 
  
  It is a bad move


• 
  
  No Opinion

view results
Free vote poll

Of Pulao and Puliyogere

When you walk in to an Indian restaurant, the first thing the waiter would ask you is “Sir, would you like to have North Indian food or South Indian food?”. On a broader perspective, most Indians, if asked to classify Indians by geography, they would say North and South. I come from Maharashtra, which is neither too north, nor too south. So most South Indians think of me as from North and most of them from North consider me a South Indian. But then, from North or South, we are all Indians, and as Nehru said, “India is my country, and all Indians are my brothers and sisters”. National integration has been on the government's agenda for a number of years, and looking at the ignorance of people about their fellow country-people, I begin to ponder on the its success.

I have myself spent half my life in Maharashtra, and the other half down south, and I know half a dozen Indian languages, and I am very interested in knowing about the lives of people over the country. Just by looking at a person, and his/her name and accent, I can normally very accurately place the person by the state he/she is from. But looking at the sheer ignorance amongst the people, I feel rather surprised. I shall cite some instances which I can recollect, that portrays the same.

The other day, when Bangalore Royal Challengers beat the Chennai Super Kings in the IPL semi-finals, one of my cousins remarked :”The Tamil people will be very happy”. I would expect most people to know that Chennai is the capital of Tamil Nadu (though Bangalore has a significant Tamilian population too, it ranks nowhere compared to Chennai). I told him the same, and he was like Bangalore and Chennai are close to each other anyway. Some professor from IIT Kanpur had written a guide on how to choose the various courses in IITs. In the guide he mentions this kind of ignorance among the people and says that “According to most of the people up North, anyone who lives below the Vindhyas is a Madrasi”. Perhaps an exaggeration, but it captures the big picture.

I had been to IIT Madras for my counselling a few days back and there, I met this guy from Hyderabad, who asked me where I was from. I said Pune, and he was like that is where IIT Bombay is right? I somehow managed not to laugh, but if a person can clear the IIT-JEE, he must surely be knowing that Mumbai and Pune are different cities!

Ignorance is one part of the story but segregation is another. Often, one finds segregation on basis of regions, not just to north-south, but also by states. Back at my college, the trend is reflected very strongly, and people from a particular state/ region often congregate. There are the Bangies (from Bangalore), the Bongos(Bengal), Matthas(Maharashtra), NK(North of Karnataka), Gults(from Andhra) and many more. The names are kinda funny. Among the North Indian lot, the South Indians are called Sandoos..dunno y. And amongst the people from south, the North Indians are called NIDs( the name was originally devised by the north people for “North Indian Dudes”, but is more popularly expanded to “North Indian Duds :) ”).

Despite all this, the Unity in Diversity is what makes India the country it is, and must continue to exist, so that we can develop to a super-power. Up north, the south Indian scripts may look like rangoli, and down south, Hindi might sound alien, but everyone must take an effort in learning and appreciating each other's cultures. This should be the way forward for the colourful spectacle that is India.

P.S. Watch Chak de India..It is a great movie

Fired Rice anyone?

Call it a bad habit, but every time I go to a restaurant, the first thing that I notice is the spelling mistakes in the menu card( I am concerned about the pricing too :) ). Most of the times, I am not disappointed, and there are usually quite a few to be found. I hear that Indians are good at spelling. Ask the Spelling Bee organisers!  The restaurant menu cards don't seem to indicate the same. But then, it is never bad to enjoy a few light moments before your meal.

When I think of misspelt words, a few immediately jump into my mind. I had been to a Chinese restaurant in Bangalore, where Fried rice was spelt as Fired Rice! I started laughing and the waiters were curious. At another occasion, Macaroni was spelt was Marconi. I thought they were going to get me a radio for dinner!

Very often, fancy meaningless names are used by restaurants, some of them are particularly rib tickling. At my college night canteen, the list goes like Veg Hong Kong, Veg Shanghai, Veg Switzerland.. I haven’t had the courage to try these out yet. The other day at my college food court, the whole menu seemed ridden with spelling mistakes. So, I got one of my friends to take a snap of the menu card. Here it is. Have a nice laugh, and next time you go to a Chinese restaurant, think about Fired Rice!

P.S. I am not very good at spellings. But I certainly know to use the Microsoft Word Spell-check. .

A fresh start

Hi all!
I have been blogging for some time now. My other blog, called numberfail has grown immensely, and has a lot of followers, who appreciate the content there. However, I have been posting on far too many other topics on numberfail, and felt the need for a blog, where I could write about my life alone. I shall continue to work on numberfail, but this shall serve as a more personal blog. It also gives me a chance to try out various features of blogger(numberfail is hosted on wordpress, which is also good, but has it's own limitations). So keep reading, and I hope that you enjoy doing so!