It has been snowing all day and I had no other option but to sit back at home. With a cup of Coffee in my hand, I made myself comfortable on the bed, reading Mrs. Usha Vaidyanathan's blog where she talks about the recently released Aamir Khan's movie, the "3 Idiots" an inspiration from Chetan Bhagat's novel Five Point Someone. I had always been a great admirer of Mrs. Usha's blog ever since I was introduced to it since last February. The way she writes is simply amazing. No wonder her blog is ranked 83rd in India.
Her latest post "Be an Idiot or be left out" where she talks about the movie 3 Idiots and her son Siddharth beautifully describes the pros and cons of the movie by comparing it with what had been through. Well, now according to me, the movie really did make a lot of sense. As Mrs. Usha rightly said one can really relate themselves to Rajkumar Hirani's movies. The latest movie is a farce at the Indian education system.
Ever since the movie has released, the reviews have been mixed. Many people have been relating themselves to the characters in the movie and have started cribbing about the education system in India and I happened to be one among them. However the top league schools in India are definitely not the kind of educational system you need to crib about. One cannot get into IIT's and IIM's just by rote memorization or cramming like the guy Chatur Ramalingam in the movie. But the scenario is totally different in the second league schools in India. It is more about scoring high marks rather than gaining knowledge and that's the reason people like Chatur Ramalingam excel in the exams. The higher the score, the better jobs one gets. Very few people care about knowledge and the reason is attributed not only to the education system but also to the society. Yes, society is also responsible for this kind of prevalence in the education system. How many times do you come across parents who ask their kids how much his/her friend has scored when he comes home with his progress report or how many times do you come across parents asking him why his percentage is just 94% when he could have easily scored 98% rather than giving him a pat on the back? Everyone have fallen into this horse race for marks. The society is also more concerned about what others are into rather than holding onto their lives and making it better. However, it would be too harsh to blame just the society and the education system. A nominal amount of responsibility lies on our shoulders because we are the ones who should better understand what we want and what suits us better. No one can tame us to be something we don't want to. We are not like a lion in the circus. Just as Rancho mentions in the movie a lion in the circus is called well trained but not well educated. We must recognize and understand if we want to be well trained or well educated. However we as individuals do not have the prowess to change the education system but this doesn't mean we keep waiting until the system changes by itself. There must be some way by which people can voice their opinion about the change they need in the education system and also high time the society stops interfering in others personal issues and concentrate on their own. "CHANGE" is what we need.
2 comments:
"he top league schools in India are definitely not the kind of educational system you need to crib about"
I tend to disagree with this.How many iitians do you think are well versed the physics they learnt? or how many of them know where to apply that physics? if it is not rote and memorization, endless practice of the same old 11th and 12th math and physics can guarantee you a place there..aamir also said something else in the movie.."why isn't there any talk of inventions and innovations" at those so called 1st league schools? and then by dividing the schools into different leagues, we are only increasing the economic inequality..what i mean is when there are 2 ppl with the same skill set, just an IIM/IIT tag shouldn't be a deciding factor for renumeration.
when you say the education system needs to be changed, I believe the entire education system needs to be changed..why not invest time and resource in upgrading every college to the status of IIT/IIM?
How many times have we talked about GPAs and grades? doesnt that count? It isn't just the parents and the system to be blamed. We are to be blamed cos we know we need the change but we simply wait for someone to bring in the change..
The count of IITians being not well versed with the physics they learn would be minimal and those few who get into IITs with rote and memorization techniques don't hold for long. Imagine how many people who use rote and memorization techniques qualify the IIT's and IIM's entrance exam in India?? I am sure the count is less. Right now I am not talking about what happens after getting into IIT's and IIM's. It is for those entrance exams atleast. On the other hand take a few state entrance exams, for example EAMCET. I am pretty sure your coaching center must have been one of those numerous coaching centers who must have thought those so called short cut methods to crack certain kind of problems. Did we ever think at that time why we are using those? I am not blaming one particular individual but most of them have been that way. However, for IIT's and IIM's you apply the concepts of whatever you have learnt so far because no question is straight forward there.
Yes, as you said we must probably invest time and resource to upgrade every college to the status of IIT/IIM?
We must have talked about grades/GPAs (here in US if that is what you are referring to) but compared to the system in India how many times did we care about the GPAs?? I don't say we had totally ignored it but we have atleast reduced it. Haven't we? This few times is also because we grew up in such an atmosphere where it was all about marks, grades, percentages.
And Yes I do totally agree that we are to be blamed and I also did mention that responsibility lies on our shoulders in my post but do you think we really have the power to change things?? If we had the situation would have been entirely different.
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