Identification

0n the 19th of May a bolt from the blue fell for most of us. For the sake of the uninformed, it was the day when the results of the ISC Examinations were rather brutally declared.For some , it was a moment of great happiness,undiluted ecstasy,a kind of concentrated source of pleasure .For the majority of the people who had undertaken the examination however,it proved to be an instant of displeasure , a rather regrettable chapter and perceived setback in his /her own planned path to become a ‘success’ story in society ( with the range of reactions varying from classical invocations of divine faecal material to more  extreme no nonsense boorish reactions which I  hesitate to mention here).All in all , it was an unceremonious conclusion to an ordeal that had lasted for a time period of four months(for the majority), sometimes the entire previous year even(the ‘ecstatic’minority).

What then understandably followed was the paranoia generated in a scramble to find places in ‘premier’ institutions of higher academia in the country where to quote one such college prospectus ‘ only the best of the best of the best’ go.This is not LPU* though.Everyone is gaily invited to join them.

As mentioned earlier , the period post the declaration of results is a time period of depression,despair and dejection for a vast number of students all over the country.Albeit just another unique set of malicious looking numbers(don’t we slug it out with many in dreaded mathematics classes?), its enough to drive most of us downright senseless. There is a general decline in student morale,a freefall of general self esteem, nervous breakdowns; you name it , the student populations in our country will unquestionably exhibit it.

Also ( and no surprises here) it is the time of the year where student suicides in our country are at an all time high , much more than the average 16 per day figure.In the past three years,India has played host to over 16,000 student suicides(that’s around 5 percent of the total suiciding population of the country.It’s not only the farmers of Vidarbha ).And I don’t mean to sound melancholic but to  put things into a different perspective , that’s the equivalent of highlighting the entire student population of Rishi Valley and pressing the delete button 53 times over.

As is the case with every other quandary our beleaguered country is unnaturally blessed with , everyone loves pointing fingers at everyone else.The psychiatrists blame peaking levels of pressures a student is assailed with between their schools and parents, the parents attribute it to the unreasonable burden thrust upon the students by the school, the schools point fingers at sky high ( and rising) expectations from universities and somewhere in this whole blame game we ‘l have a couple of politicians throwing some colorful insults at each other.

Yet , despite all this distressingly enough, nothing changes, year after year. Everyone points long fingers at the education system as a whole but if one really studies the whole running of the system carefully broadly speaking the transition phase between school and college is where the majority of our problems lie.You see , the fact of the matter is that our entire school life in most cases is largely a preparation for this transitory phase.Our approach and the way we define this phase could not be worse.

Take the very examination as an illustration.When you look back at it retrospectively , it is oddly disturbing that in an examination which is viewed as being instrumental in ‘making or breaking’ your future,one is repeatedly encouraged not to be smart,not to think out of the box or be in the least bit creative .Instead you are advised to stick to a pattern, replicate material in your text books word to word .You are given lectures on time management and the questions in many cases are expected to be ‘cracked’ rather than ‘solved’ (there is a subtle difference between the two).And to sum things up you are reminded to factor in bizarre functions like the mindset of the examiner,the conditions in the correction centre that could adversely affect his mindset,the kind of education he is likely to have had and so on and so forth.Somewhere along the way , the exam loses its purpose , to be a test of intelligence.

Then take the cases on the institutions in our country that we all aim to get in to.They make their admissions based on these examinations,having sky high cut offs that could make even the ‘ecstatic majority’ quiver.They do not end up picking the ‘best of the best’( how do you even define this in the first place?) but simply , the faster crackers, the ones who can retain and replicate  scrutinized material with greater finesse.Needless to say we are not getting anywhere from this approach.

I’ve only briefly mentioned two tribulations we face; a little bit of research and one finds out that the problems are much more complex and far reaching than these.I’m not the first to talk about them(in fact all that I’m providing is sketchy reminders) , but with a little bit of luck and determination, I may be one of the last few who need to.Alternate systems of education( and smarter too!) are developing all over the country.Students , more than adequately frustrated with the brand of tutoring that is being dished out to them (it’s more of business than learning) are increasingly searching and finding rich alternatives.So, we have a frustrated student en masse , innovative and fresh alternatives and perhaps with a little more awareness ,we might have an education revolution round the corner.After all, on the lines of a famous Japanese Kotowaza(folk saying)' He wo hitte shiri tsubome'**, we need it before further damage is done

*LPU stands for Lovely Professional University (Punjab).While I may have poked some unnecessary fun at their expense,no offence was wished for.In a couple of years they could very well become a role model type institution.

**The folk saying has two interpretations.

A)There is no use in shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted or,

B)There is no point in squeezing your buttocks after you have farted.