I always believe I learnt more from google, wikipedia than from text books in schools or colleges. My english grammar and comprehension skills were enhanced by non-curriculum based books written by Wren & Martin, Normal Lewis, Nurnberg & Rosenblum etc, but not by english text books I mugged up in school. My analytical skills were honed by my preparation of GRE, CAT and other aptitude exams but not.....oops, there was no such subject at school dedicated to improve analytical aptitude :)
Back in school, teachers favored only those students who mugged up books and vomited their memory on answer sheets. So whenever I tried to write a concept I understood, in my own words, I ended up getting lower marks and I saw an imminent danger of missing the ubiquitous aim of maintaining 85% (which was considered a hallmark for intelligence, hardwork in those days - mid 90's). So I followed the herd, mugged up words, filled additionals and somehow managed to cross the so called cut off mark. But what I didn't realize was that I ended up being just another floppy disk of memory and not a genuinely intelligent kid.
There were many who were genuinely awesome who applied thought and reasoning behind concepts, derived formulae, tried to relate practical implementation of everything they learnt including Pythagoras and other theorems or organic chemistry or quantum mechanics. But ironically, such students passed with average marks and later joined some average course which didn't tap or suit their knowledge. On the other hand, those who by-hearted formulae, theorems, answers got admission into creme-de-la-creme courses which hurled them into cushioned careers.
Bottom Line: Those who were analytical, reasoning and practical didn't get marks and their careers went into oblivion. That's the situation of our exams / grades driven education system.
Intermediate education has been worse to its core. Cracking EAMCET was the final destination and students were put to every kind of pressure to reach that destination rather than directing them to excellence. I have to confess that whatever I've done in those two years was crap as I never tried to think above EAMCET. I kind of mugged up some 500 formulae in MPC and worked on some 1000 model papers to see what kind of questions were asked earlier. It became a method-preparation in rat race. After this kind of homework, EAMCET went well. I was expecting 400 rank but got 4000 rank and quite naturally, I could not perform well in IIT-JEE as I lacked that conceptual aptitude, which I repent till date.
Engineering was another black spot. After 4 years, I got B.Tech certificate but could never understand how to apply that knowledge. Even those who were interested in that field, underwent private courses on related subjects before bagging jobs in the field. This was the direct result of irrelevant course curriculum and lack of practical approach which took a toll on students when they became employees. No surprise, we see lakhs of engineering students graduate every year, but only a handful of them - resourceful.
With the kind of half baked theoretical knowledge I acquired in B.Tech, I was apprehensive to appear for technical exam like GATE and hence chose GRE because it was all about maths, english which I always loved. The exam went well, I received I20's from decent universities, planned everything for US travel but US consulate turned to be my bete noire since then. 4 times rejection of student visa under the pretext that I was a potential immigrant left me half happy, half sad; happy because I didn't have to pursue MS again in engineering and sad because I didn't have an alternative.
Then started my journey towards CAT which was supposedly the toughest exam in India. I was over-ambitious and over confident because the syllabus was again my favorite - maths, analytical and english. But the exam clearly defied my over-confidence and I could not get admission in IIMs. Another repentance of my life. But I had a sense of deja vu, when I got an admission in second rung business school which thankfully considered by CAT scores.
Only after joining MBA did I realize the blackhole in the education I underwent till then. In MBA, I was made to work on lot of projects to understand the ground reality and challenges the real world faced with little emphasis on marks and grades. As a part of curriculum, I knocked door to door to sell insurance policies, online bill payment solutions; went around offices to sell corporate greeting cards for new-years; roamed around bus stops to conduct surveys, sat hours before computer to identify target customers, wrote business plans, marketing plans, market research strategies, learnt how to speak, how to present, how to communicate in the real situations - all through working with structured companies like ICICI, BSNL, TATA AIG, Dr. Reddy's Labs, ITC etc. MBA was the course where I scored the least (marks) in my education history but again that was the phase where I "learnt" something, which I missed earlier. The corporate world too didn't peep into my academic score when they offered me the job.
So what I understood was that if there was a practical orientation in a course, the student will learn and can easily bridge the gap between academics and work atmosphere.
Now talking about the current education system, it is simply worsening students' aptitude by over emphasizing on marks and grading system. 95% has become a joke and making things worse, a college affiliated to Delhi University made 100% as a cut-off mark for admissions. Ridiculous to the core. This kind of glorification of marks is adversely affecting Indian student world.
Usually there is a general perception that Indian students are intelligent but why is this intelligence not applied to develop the country ? Except one CV Raman or S.Chandrasekhar or Amartya Sen, we didn't really see nobel laureates; we never saw any significant invention or discovery from India. The only reason for this could be over-emphasis on theoretical education system, obsolete and irrelevant curriculum, unrealistic examination system, unnecessary glorification of marks, impractical criteria of admissions which leave out genuine wizards and elevate plastic brains.
That's the condition of our education system which is unwittingly hobbling the untapped talent, intelligence of young brains and hence prosperity and advancement of the country on a broader level !
PS: Related article about application of knowledge to prosper: Be an Entrepreneur !
Back in school, teachers favored only those students who mugged up books and vomited their memory on answer sheets. So whenever I tried to write a concept I understood, in my own words, I ended up getting lower marks and I saw an imminent danger of missing the ubiquitous aim of maintaining 85% (which was considered a hallmark for intelligence, hardwork in those days - mid 90's). So I followed the herd, mugged up words, filled additionals and somehow managed to cross the so called cut off mark. But what I didn't realize was that I ended up being just another floppy disk of memory and not a genuinely intelligent kid.
There were many who were genuinely awesome who applied thought and reasoning behind concepts, derived formulae, tried to relate practical implementation of everything they learnt including Pythagoras and other theorems or organic chemistry or quantum mechanics. But ironically, such students passed with average marks and later joined some average course which didn't tap or suit their knowledge. On the other hand, those who by-hearted formulae, theorems, answers got admission into creme-de-la-creme courses which hurled them into cushioned careers.
Bottom Line: Those who were analytical, reasoning and practical didn't get marks and their careers went into oblivion. That's the situation of our exams / grades driven education system.
Intermediate education has been worse to its core. Cracking EAMCET was the final destination and students were put to every kind of pressure to reach that destination rather than directing them to excellence. I have to confess that whatever I've done in those two years was crap as I never tried to think above EAMCET. I kind of mugged up some 500 formulae in MPC and worked on some 1000 model papers to see what kind of questions were asked earlier. It became a method-preparation in rat race. After this kind of homework, EAMCET went well. I was expecting 400 rank but got 4000 rank and quite naturally, I could not perform well in IIT-JEE as I lacked that conceptual aptitude, which I repent till date.
Engineering was another black spot. After 4 years, I got B.Tech certificate but could never understand how to apply that knowledge. Even those who were interested in that field, underwent private courses on related subjects before bagging jobs in the field. This was the direct result of irrelevant course curriculum and lack of practical approach which took a toll on students when they became employees. No surprise, we see lakhs of engineering students graduate every year, but only a handful of them - resourceful.
With the kind of half baked theoretical knowledge I acquired in B.Tech, I was apprehensive to appear for technical exam like GATE and hence chose GRE because it was all about maths, english which I always loved. The exam went well, I received I20's from decent universities, planned everything for US travel but US consulate turned to be my bete noire since then. 4 times rejection of student visa under the pretext that I was a potential immigrant left me half happy, half sad; happy because I didn't have to pursue MS again in engineering and sad because I didn't have an alternative.
Then started my journey towards CAT which was supposedly the toughest exam in India. I was over-ambitious and over confident because the syllabus was again my favorite - maths, analytical and english. But the exam clearly defied my over-confidence and I could not get admission in IIMs. Another repentance of my life. But I had a sense of deja vu, when I got an admission in second rung business school which thankfully considered by CAT scores.
Only after joining MBA did I realize the blackhole in the education I underwent till then. In MBA, I was made to work on lot of projects to understand the ground reality and challenges the real world faced with little emphasis on marks and grades. As a part of curriculum, I knocked door to door to sell insurance policies, online bill payment solutions; went around offices to sell corporate greeting cards for new-years; roamed around bus stops to conduct surveys, sat hours before computer to identify target customers, wrote business plans, marketing plans, market research strategies, learnt how to speak, how to present, how to communicate in the real situations - all through working with structured companies like ICICI, BSNL, TATA AIG, Dr. Reddy's Labs, ITC etc. MBA was the course where I scored the least (marks) in my education history but again that was the phase where I "learnt" something, which I missed earlier. The corporate world too didn't peep into my academic score when they offered me the job.
So what I understood was that if there was a practical orientation in a course, the student will learn and can easily bridge the gap between academics and work atmosphere.
Now talking about the current education system, it is simply worsening students' aptitude by over emphasizing on marks and grading system. 95% has become a joke and making things worse, a college affiliated to Delhi University made 100% as a cut-off mark for admissions. Ridiculous to the core. This kind of glorification of marks is adversely affecting Indian student world.
Usually there is a general perception that Indian students are intelligent but why is this intelligence not applied to develop the country ? Except one CV Raman or S.Chandrasekhar or Amartya Sen, we didn't really see nobel laureates; we never saw any significant invention or discovery from India. The only reason for this could be over-emphasis on theoretical education system, obsolete and irrelevant curriculum, unrealistic examination system, unnecessary glorification of marks, impractical criteria of admissions which leave out genuine wizards and elevate plastic brains.
That's the condition of our education system which is unwittingly hobbling the untapped talent, intelligence of young brains and hence prosperity and advancement of the country on a broader level !
PS: Related article about application of knowledge to prosper: Be an Entrepreneur !
5 comments:
Very clear and real situation of present education system... let us hope for a change by reviews and related articles by people like sharath
hey...great post...Tried to read that article 'Be an Entrepreneur'. But can't access it :(
Thanks mamaiah :)
@ Anonymous: Please check now !
Hey Chandu anna... Great article and what I feel is people who realize the type of Indian educational system and mug up the concepts will end up getting high grades and people who don't are in two categories.... one category is just leaving the system and learning how they want to ( this category has achieved something) and the other is just becoming useless.... The mugging concept will not end only with Intermediate... it continues in engineering (where practical knowledge is required to its core) too (especially JNTU) where studying All-in-One (which contains previous semesters exam papers) will get you 80% ( so sick) ..... There is no encouragement for doing internships, research..... no scholarships..... even a fresh graduate can become a lecturer in an engineering college and make future engineers.... After joining MS, I am realizing the importance of practical education and also the type of educational system required to make people study out of interest rather that to make people study by forcing.... Our Indian educational system needs a drastic improvement and with the type of mindsets people are in now... its almost impossible.....
Swethu..you nailed it dear !
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