Education: More of A Belief system?

Society, over the years, has developed its own organisational structure. Even individuals have their basic routine setup, which they don't like  disturbed. All in all, it seems easier for mankind to follow when there is an organisational chart laid out as to how to perform it. It's this impending belief that has probably made us develop this flowchart with exams and interviews, so as to go on with life. After certain years of school, one is supposed to go to college, or get a job if situations persist. Keep in mind, the situation is probably the financial constraints of his/her family.

College admission is another procedure that has upped the cash flow in the education field. The number of tutorial start-ups all over India, like Kota, has made it their prime objective to make the students mark the right circle irrespective of what's written next to it. The techniques used even include eliminating the options rather than getting to the answer the methodical fashion.

The JEE Mains & JEE Advance system has just made this an extravagant business for anxious parents who want their child to crack a coconut and enter IIT. Two exams are all that differentiate between the innumerable students giving it every year. The system has been framed in such a way that this could be a deciding factor in what they pursue even later in life. This is not the end of this system where loopholes were, it seems pretty ordered.

Loophole - 1
The normalisation systems which have converted the Board exam marks to use it along with the entrance marks have also been under huge fire. Stricter boards are given a lesser weightage in comparison to boards where 100% is given at will.

Loophole - 2 
The reservation system, though helps people of lower castes get to higher echelons of education, has not been able to weed out the people who use this to their advantage in spite of their well off background. Let's be serious, reservation can't be given just on grounds that the student's great great grandfather was oppressed and of lower caste.

After all these normalisations and filterings, a select few can only get through. As a result of the increasing pressure on students to live up to different expectations, the failure to attain a seat is taken hard. There have been many cases where students who were not able to live up to the pressure have taken the easier way out. Parents have pressurised students to take courses, not letting the student follow their natural course. The organisational style that man created for his life has come back to bite him. There is an involuntary oppression of ideas at a young age and the students tend to follow orders like cattle. Some succeed some break.

Before this tedious educational flowchart was established, all lines of work were right out there for the individual to delve and choose. Now there are more closed doors than open and of course, there is a price for each door, a materialistic pang to this mix which has already proved potent for many young minds all over.

Opportunities are galore. But the path paved towards them is way more crooked than it should be. A series of multiple choice questions, should not possibly deny a student much further involvement in a field he/she might be actually interested in. A series of aptitude, personality & technical tests can be a particularly good alternative. Learning a few thousand answers by rote will be "Like leading a horse to the water...". But as the saying goes "You can only lead a horse, but you can't make it drink it".

Let's look at education, more as just as a man-made path, rather than a belief system that people cling onto!

Written by Adishesh Premkumar

An ardent believer in lethargy. An astute follower of all the good things in life.