A talented young boy of 14 loves science and math. So he takes those subjects in ninth and tenth. He expects to gain practical knowledge, but all he gets is a pool of words of a page of a prescribed text book. But some how he memorises everything and gets 90%. He didn't wish to learn that way, but parents, teachers and classmates tell him that that was the only way he would get marks.
After tenth, he wishes to peruse
engineering. But later he finds out that to get onto a reputed institute for
engineering he would first have to give an entrance exam. In fact entrance
exams. He got to know that he would have to give an entrance exam to qualify
for the major exam. To prepare for these exams, he would have to join coaching
classes. To join these classes he had to give another entrance exam.
Having no
other option, he gave an exam, joined a coaching class and a week after he gave
his tenth boards, he sat for these classes. All the kid wanted to do was
experience the world of science. He wanted to discover, to explore, to learn.
However, what he got was light years away from what he wanted. He sat eight
hours a day in classes, attended college on the side, and came home exhausted
and hungry. All he got left was a couple of hours to do homework before he went
to sleep. He did this 365 days a year for two years before his mind became
numb. He had to stop socialising, had to stop most of his hobbies and reduced
all forms of entertainment. He was nothing more than a piece of flesh whose
only job was to obey the commands of his parents and teachers.
Finally, when he
passed the first time exam and sat for the major exam, he was greatful to God
that this routine was finally over. His paper went good. He knew that he had
worked hard and deserved the seat in his desired university. When his results
came, he celebrated. He knew his grades exceeded the cut-off needed for the
admission, even though by a margin of five marks. When the university gave out
its selection list, this boy of 17 did not get admission since his seat was given
to someone with a quota due to his caste, even though this other student got 30
marks lesser than him. This boy tore his hair.
Education in this country is the
best in the world. Our students run over that of other nations in the
international arena. But what we do not see is that in order to get such
perfect students, we forget to judge people on their personality and brains,
but we rather judge them on less important things like a mark sheet and the
quota category that come in. Same is the case for the other two fields viz.
Commerce and Arts.
Rather than enhancing each one's special talent, we bring
them all at one level, destroying their original self.
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