Rise of Shun-the-colonial Education

The title of this post sounds an encouragement to rebel attitudes but in the last 1 and half year this could really be a system than a rebel provoking world. 

A chance chat with one of my friends who is also a concerned parent about today's times where his son is in XI std without appearing for the draconian board exam, has led me to thinking about it... COVID has changed or brought something that will have long term impact in our lives, especially the working class like us. Let me take a short digression about the seed of this post to the 90s or more precisely 1992-1993. 

In 1993, I appeared for my X Std Board Exams and by far, the most revered exam of all middle class till date too. Board Exams apparently are so draconian till date too maybe, that many kids before me and also later committed suicide due to the results. I won't blame the Board Exam as such but yes they were game changers.. at least they were thought to be... Today after 28 years when I look back on my days of preparation as well as my contemporaries' preparations and their's and my life now, I really wonder, was that all worth? What was the big craze? What were we chasing? What did we achieve or did not achieve? Haven't every person who scored well or not has really done super well for himself/herself? 

My schoolmates today are back on chatting with me (thanks to WhatsApp group and also some friends who were LLBs (Lord of Last Benches) and always ignored by snobs like us but they tried so hard to bring all of us together again for an irrational reason that cannot be explained even by me) on regular basis and we often get nostalgic about those days. But almost all of them are doing very well. Some who are not doing well career wise have their own reasons but no one is LOSER as it was thought so back then. 

On hindsight, I see that post Independence and of course with rising industrialization in our country the chase for the coveted job, the bada-babu tag for your son, the elegant professions like being a Doctor or Engineer, the UPSC qualifiers and the laal-batti gaadi pride and then the 90s of IT revolution with IIMs taking the center stage suddenly post Dot Com burst of 2000 along with India becoming the rising star (which is still rising, maybe) as an outsourcing destination for the Caucasians (or as I say always gora), the importance of studies, marks, degrees was always on forefront. Though, not all could make the best out of anything, but a lot of people did do very well for themselves. And that is exactly my point. I do not underestimate education or degrees or diplomas but the freakish chase, the pressure, the strict discipline, the importance of marks, the joining to "a particular college", though the syllabus is same and the kind of teachers too, was it all well-planned or thought of? Our parents and of course we too, never did something called Critical Analysis. (I learned the usage of this term from my "Critically Analytic" school friend, recently). 

If the syllabus is same and the types of kinds of tutors are same, if the books and notes available in the market are same, if the air you breathe is same while commuting to your havens of learning places, if we all joined different coaching classes but had the same tutors shuttling between centers, if all shared the same notes and worked equally hard only with a difference of regurgitating more or less in our answer sheets or practical exams, then why were our parents so chasing us teaching us the importance of hard-work and competition in life? Answer is same - No Critical Analysis. I don't mean to say they didn't but actually they didn't know how to do it. And apparently, even today I don't know precisely how to do it. 

If marks, colleges and institutes and degrees decide our future then today in 2021, I do not see much difference in people's present as predicted 28 years ago. All I see is everybody has done something or the other to make their life happier and which we would have done it anyway. Worst scenario is people who were good in studies, especially women have not at all pursued the career due to the same dogma that their parents carried. Many of my female schoolmates, today could have been self-reliant if their parents would have not thought of them as kisi aur ke ghar ki amanat. The middle class is called so, because it always stays between a past event and a future possibility and still indecisive about which one to be followed. 

There is a stark change in today's 20s and 30s age groups, maybe due to American TV and lifestyles. Me and my parents came from a strict school of thought:

Past were the best times...

Future is always uncertain...

In present you stretch your limits for your future!

Thus came the obvious thought of hanging on to a path that seems to be known to give you guaranteed success. No one got educated for learning something because it is their skill. In the 90s we all got into Software because those were the sunrise sectors giving us jobs. And companies too body-shopped. My IT friends even today tell me, today also India is the IT hub of outsourcing destination because 1$ = 70 or 80 Rs. and not because of in-sourced talent. No wonder India has neither created its own programming language or operating system or any new technology or framework. We are the low cost laborers of the White Collar Job of IT domain for the gora. But apart from this, very few have done engineering or medical education even like pharma grad for the sake of their interest. It was always the job opportunity sink where all were being drained to. And those who could not make it were made to feel losers. But is it so? As I said, my schoolmates have done well. My Juniors and Seniors too who were not good scorers but have done very, very well for themselves, especially the low scorers. I remember how their parents used to have their faces on seeing my good marks and their ward's marks. But honestly today their child is more successful and happier too perhaps... He learned life skills the hard way. Thanks to his attitude of ignoring his parents' expressions and doing the best thing that suits him. 

On a side note, this kind of attitude of parents also made rise a dirty industry of coaching classes or institutes that guarantee your ticket to success which was mostly a ticket to USA. Shame on all of us for that. 

The dawn of COVID era will bring new way of learning itself. The new normal of ONLINE. Education as online is not my favorite but what option do we have? Or in other words, what best came out of OFFLINE learning like ours? I believe firmly one who wants to or can will anyway... Medium is really not an issue though it's effects are persistent. My college-mate told me his daughter dozes off due to ogling at the digital screen so he despises this online education. I humbly reminded, that he too used to doze off in coaching class as well as in college and he is used to smartly choose his last bench hiding from the teacher. So there is no such thing. This kind of notion comes from the thought process I have put forward in the above three lines... Past was better.. blah.. blah... Of course, online education and ogling at screen will have serious health issues such as myopia for kids and even psychological impacts like treading out is either scary as it is now or maybe kids become lazy. But then, following the new normal apart and parents to be extra cautious in addition too, we had kids who had spectacles in school days when there was no video games or so. They got it because in dim-lit rooms of middle class dens called chawl, they used to study bending their backs almost parallel to the floor. I was one of them, though I didn't have specs due to that. Then there were kids who were anorexic especially girls. During puberty many had eating disorders. So whats new? 

Being between digital screen is harmful, yes, but making it as the only issue of life is something we need to change mindset. I was and I am big TV buff! Even today I cannot have dinner at home without TV. Why? Well that was the madness of our time I got hooked to like kids are to mobile phone today. Was I supposed to be disciplined back then? Well if I would have been subjected to, then definitely I would have rebelled. So what about these kids. Maybe same reaction? Moral is, it is all about channelizing the energy of kids. My schoolmate, who is a mother of two, showed this concern and also gave a suggestion that having a pet might channelize their energy. What a wonderful idea? Why didn't my parents come up with that? Instead of TV then I would have been feeding the dog, be concerned about him and take him for a walk etc and not ogle at TV... Times have changed and thus should change our approach towards solving them.

Coming back to Board Exams and exams per se... I would say, exams should be kept as self-assessment only and not a compulsion. When subjected to competition in life we all have learned new skills only and the exam competitiveness has given us nothing! At least not for me. I could never memorize things efficiently but those who did, scored well. Today it doesn't matter to me or them. I couldn't memorize answers or dates of history etc. but I remembered many things correctly with which I got connected. So are many such professionals. Appearing for a Board Exam or University Exam if given a choice, the system might be feeling helpless but that is hypocrisy anyway, because every interviewer for a Govt job and Private job knows the marks and degrees are immaterial. If it was, then why are they taking interview even for freshers? Maybe it is an initial filter for the set of people to be interviewed, but the results are same. No matter how good a person was in their exams, the answers to interview and thereafter the results due to the work are often non-correlated. Why then are these competitive exams still existing pushing kids against the wall?

One of my friend is working as Asst Prof at one of the IITs and his experience about this subject approach of the students is the same as we all could gauge. People screw their two years in preparing for this mother of all entrance exams and thereafter it doesn't matter which Engineering stream they choose. All that matters is they are IITian. IITs are the best place for everything that I know in Engineering, be it the Labs, the works, the libraries, the research facilities, the exposure to who's-who of the industry, the foreign collaboration of Profs, the campus itself. But hardly 1-2% of kids go for these things or even pursue it for these things. No one tells them about these beautiful aspects (though I do...). All that matters is whether you are an IITian or not! Shame for the nation actually for not exposing this to the new generation. The best parts of professional education are never expressed to us even while pursuing it. Then what is the purpose of that exam? I respect and admire IIT a lot for many good things but the craze for that has harbored coaching classes who just churn out future IITians. Parents too push their kids for these classes who charge exorbitant fees for their so called magic wand whereas the kid is not worth being Engineer.

In our nation what we are worth is never seen with respect to our skills, but our worth is decided by what can happen in future for us... A beautiful girl is more worthy of getting married than an ugly who actually could be the best life-partner but the grooms won't see that. A degree from IIT or IIM is worth something than from other institutes. A degrees holder is worth something than a drop-out. This has been the norm. Why else do we vote X fail and send them to Raisina Hill? Why are we so hypocrite?

Sometime back I heard two kids (pursuing XI Std, going for procuring the college form) in an auto-rickshaw sitting next to me talking to each other about choosing Science then going for IT courses than Engineering because money to be spent in other streams is waste due to no jobs. I despise this thought but on hindsight, I see that the kids at that age know where the jobs are. Honestly many of us still don't know where our career lies actually! Kids of today's era are smart and think differently. Their school of thought could be like this, I feel:

Past is no more...

Future is going to be awesome...

And for that I will do this today!

They are the start-up thinkers. They know which career to pursue. They can do critical analysis. We just have to provide an ecosystem and be there in case they fall or fail. Our parents didn't let us fail thinking a known path is always a sure shot way of success, which is not true! No offense to them, but they did what they can. We need to do not what we can, but what we should. I encourage every kid, teenager and youth to do things that they can. Getting an education for their joy, doing a job or business to pour in what they can and being happy in life is what the nation needs. Not 100 more IITs to churn out IITians and still propagate a notion that others are losers. India needs Education of the Grown-ups so that the future Indians can think and live with their freedom of thought and also take failure and convert it into success as per their means. 

Let your children try and fail instead of protecting them from failure. They will learn life and lead it too.