Editor’s note – This article comes from a college student based in south India. The commentary, though a bit angry at times, is representative of the frustrations that many students face. Part of the commentary brushes on a comparison between the author’s experiences in undergraduate education in India and USA.
Author’s note – Even when I was growing up and attending school, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do be in a spirited learning environment anywhere in India so, being enthusiastic in science, right after graduating secondary school I went to the US to study in a university there. But after a year of studying there I had to discontinue and come back here to India due to certain personal reasons. I had to re-join in a supposedly reputed college here to save my face from the ridicule of the society. The following is my statement regarding the frustration I face on a daily basis.
I love India. It’s my mother country and I am proud of all its achievements and other admirable attributes. But I hate so many things about the Indian education system that it made me become ready to leave the country for good. It is not just the system but also the educational culture that supports its functioning that is rotten.
The educational culture:-
Here, success all really means getting out of the education system and getting a good job; a good job being one that secures the future life of the person and pays above average. That’s Success. That’s it. That’s how short-sighted it all is. There’s no specialized or specific focus on functionality let alone excellence. If you follow the Indian education system, you don’t grow up to become a scientist who invents something great, a researcher who rediscovers science, an artist who excels at his/her work, a sports person who excels (Have you ever seen an Indian athlete? Heard of one? And for fucks sake, India has 1.2 BILLION people!). There are of course exceptions to this statement but they are such a minority!
Regular Indian’s life:-
Ok, here’s the drill – After the years of drilling, when you finally get out of high school, you try to get into the top engineering colleges in the country which by the way are few and far apart. If you fail, you settle for an average engineering college, if you don’t like that, you settle for an arts/science college, which by the way, is the lowest form of college in terms of social respect, popularity, attendance and such. Many times, a student wouldn’t be in a program that they chose to be in because of the population crisis here. So you end up being in a program that you don’t like and you just have to do with it. And no, you can’t choose your classes or your professors or choose how fast/slow you do the course or anything like that. Once you’re allotted a program of study, that’s it, you stay in that program till you get out of that college…and you can’t do it in your own time either, you’ll have to finish it at the time specified by the college. And besides all these outdated methods, the colleges have tumbling, sanity-defying rules. Just to quote a few from the one I was in, 1) you can’t wear a t-shirt that has a round-neck…it has to be either a shirt or a “collared” t-shirt. In some colleges you have to wear formal shirts. These are “dress-codes”. 2) You can’t have camera cell-phones. In some colleges you can’t even have the regular cell phones! 3) And in some you can’t even light-heartedly interact with the opposite sex! It’s like a fucking concentration camp in there…only that it’s a concentration camp that you bribe and fight your way in. And here are the attributes that a college prides of itself – The conduct of the students, the regularity of the professors to the classrooms, the attendance of the students etc. That’s what they look out for – things that they’re supposed to be doing and not things that they should be proud of doing! They don’t look out for their students inventing something new, becoming world-class scientists or anything like that!
Anyway just because someone went through an engineering college doesn’t mean they’ll become an Engineer. They might’ve studied mechanical engineering and they would end up in a software job. In fact, that is the norm rather than the exception…because software jobs give you the best income – which is around ` 5 Lakhs a year. And besides, where the fuck do these engineering graduates go anyway? If there are so many of them, how come there are no indigenous engineering feats in India? How come there aren’t any noteworthy scientific achievements? Where are the results?!
Anyway, after this college business, you get into a job OR you get into a business school for a MBA. Then you work for a bunch of years. If you’re successful, you’ll be working for a private company (mostly a software company) earning around ` 5 lakhs per year. And then you marry someone that your parents chose for you! If you’re a girl, then you skip the process of education after college and just sit at house/be in a job for a while and get married to someone chosen by your parents. That’s an average Indian’s life summed up for you. Anything aside from this is not normal. Oh yeah, if you made a smart (and lucky) choice, you might end up studying abroad after college…you know, countries like USA, UK, Australia or something like that.
Oh, and nobody really wants to be a teacher/professor because they don’t pay much for a teacher/professor. Usually the ones that do end up as teachers/professors are those that need money and have no other options. They aren’t simply lowly qualified but they’re also with low enthusiasm for the subject (not to mention low knowledge of the subject). There are a very few exceptions to this statement and I respect those exceptional people. But the majority being who they are, it explains the atmosphere and lacking of spirit in the classrooms.
The education system:-
First, I’d like to address this issue – What gives me the right to walk all over this system? I’ll answer it – I have been through this befallen education system and also the American undergraduate education system. That makes me a minority of sorts. I have the right to compare and analyse the education systems. And here are some notable traits:-
There’s no enthusiasm in the classroom for the subject. No one sits in the class because they want to learn but because they have no other choice (you’ve got to have the attendance to pass the semester!); even the professors. There’s no passion for anything. There are no creative questions asked, no unthought-of thoughts kindred, no critical thoughts encouraged and no inspiration given.
And let’s talk about research! There’s no research! Everything the professors teach is learnt (by them) from the professors of their generation or stupid textbooks written by foreigners. Indian textbooks have the quality of buffaloshit. The textbooks followed in class would be written by Indians in the 70s or something like that and they still have typos and grammatical mistakes even in their twelfth editions! They’re that poor not to mention completely outdated. And no one really cares to notice these things!
Let’s get to how the system operates. The education system is examination oriented. Here’s what I mean – not too long ago, I asked my physics professor why “Lagrange’s formula” was important; and she explained in her broken English – “because it’s an important 12.5 marks question in the external examination”. This examination oriented approach to education is a short-sighted shortcut that nullifies the whole point of education. I mean, shouldn’t we be learning about how to practically apply these principles and knowledge to the real world rather than spending all our time ritualistically preparing for examinations? And the reason why “true learning” and “preparing for exams” are not the same is that students can pass a course with flying colours simply by memorizing the answers to past years’ question papers and/or to that of the list of “important questions” offered by the professors just before the examinations. And this type of “learning” and “understanding” goes away as soon as it comes. In the end, the student would have a degree in hand without really knowing much about their field. Also, this way of “learning” turns education into more or less an undesirable chore to the student. It rarely gets seen as an enjoyable, self-driven attempt to widening the horizons of one’s wisdom.
Think about it, why would I hate it so much? I just can’t stand it anymore! I’m intelligent inside but that never gets acknowledged by the system. Things like being intelligent and a standalone thinker here mean that you’re an outcast to the system. The system requires blind obedience to un-forethought rules/ideas/principles that went through its creation. In this process, your intelligence gets unused/rusted and finally destroyed.
Imagine how frustrating it must be to be doing something other than what you’re born to do for the rest of your life…something that is way below your level of sophistication. That’s how frustrating it could get if you’re an intelligent, creative, unique person with an internal sense of direction sitting in an Indian classroom.
This is why I went to the USA! Now, I don’t know about the American school system and studies show that it is dumb, but as far as what I know about undergraduate education system in the top national universities, I got everything I expected and wanted. I got acknowledged by the professors as an intelligent student, I loved the classroom atmosphere, the lectures, the professors’ enthusiasm, fellow students’ enthusiasm (much because the majority of them were sitting in the classroom by choice and not by compulsion, which might be because of the exorbitant amount of money they pay to be there), the critical thinking involved, the mutual respect to everyone involved (In India, the professors scream at the students for silence and obedience) and the FREEDOM and opportunities! I was in a fucking awesome job that, though it was a part-time job, was paying me more than what a normal job in India would pay after several years of experience and above all, I was doing research though I was only an undergraduate student! I was going up the research ladder and working for NASA and stuff.
In conclusion I’d like to bring everyone’s attention to the dysfunctional status of our education system and also to the fact that if it continued to exist in the state it is in, will desecrate the young intellects and drive them away from doing anything productive or worthwhile for the development of India. I firmly believe that India’s future rests in the hands of youngsters like me whose competence and ability in turn rests on the quality and functionality of the education we receive. Education simply cannot afford to go on to be a set of mere rituals that ultimately means only to be a mediocre financial benefit. So, in essence, to get our country to an admirable position we have to revolutionize the quality of education that we receive.
The author can be contacted at ragav.payne@gmail.com