Being a Part of INDIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM

I still remember that fine day

when soon after joining the school, my parents were overly excited and I was

given strict instructions to draw the circle with a red crayon and not a blue

one. And soon after that day, my teacher talked to my parents and I was scolded

because the girl with the red hairband had a ROUNDER circle. I actually didn’t

know what was happening to me, because I was more interested in her hairband,

but I certainly knew that this was the beginning of something scary.

Ever since that little incident

in nrsry, and so many similar ones in KG, I, II, III… I knew that I am an

integral part of what we know as the INDIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM.

“I was riding a tiger”. I may

sound like Ramalinga Raju when I say that, but believe me, in front of the

situation I was trapped in; screwing up Satyam would seem like a cakewalk.

For not drawing a perfect circle,

for not adding the remainder, for not underlining the main point or for not

letting Akbar be the son of Humayun, everything reflected with a red on

my reportcard and with a red on my face. Clearly, I was a part of this

RAT RACE (for marks) that staying behind was SO unacceptable.

This continued and still does. It

was this “Education System” that made me realize that simply KNOWING is not the

thing that would take you ahead. You may know as much as you want, but, the

ultimate powers lie with the examiner. He can spoil or make your life with 1

pen in his hand (provided “knowledge” is something he may/may not have).

When a class 12 marksheet can get

u in SRCC or PGDAV, or an AIEEE score can get you into NIT or BMIT, why do you

need to know stuff…??

You can simply cram up

pre-defined laws, some hypothetical statements and some already asked

questions… and TADA…. YOU ARE THE NEXT BEST THING.

But, who’s winning here…??

The hard worker or the hard core

crammer…??

And here is when I compare my

class 12 to my nrsry. Drawing a circle is no rocket science, but nor is

stuffing your head with a limited amount of information, when you are almost

18.

Based on a green marksheet, which

I still don’t understand, I landed here, in an engineering college that claims

to be the best in the business. And, what I see here is nothing different than

my class 12, or even nrsry for that matter.

The same limited information, the

same marks, the same rat race and which brings me to the same old red circle.

This is what we have in this

Indian Education System… LIMITS.

They want you to touch the skies,

but, they don’t want you to stretch your wings.

If people from India can be CEOs

for google, they can also make something like google.

If an 18 year old Mark Zuckenberg

can be a billionaire with facebook, even Tarush Jain can be one, but, Mark did

not have what Tarush has…

Limited support

Limited freedom

Limited access

Limited exposure

Limited syllabus to gobble up and vomit out on a

36 page answer sheet

Sometimes I sit back and think…

If I had drawn that circle with a

blue crayon and not the red one, maybe my teacher would have liked it more.

But, the choice was made for me.

I had a set of crayons with

limited colours to choose from, I had to choose what I was asked to and I was

awarded with what my teacher liked.

In this, there was “I”… but not a

happy “I”.

I did… what most of us in this

education system do, that is to succumb and accept.