Where Human Is an External Hard Drive…

Krishna came home very tired and irritated. He looked at his watch and it was 6:00 pm. When he had left  home to school, it was 7:00 am and he had been nowhere else but tied to his seat in the classroom except for a few recesses. He sighed very badly and shouted at everybody at home, for his tuition teacher would be  there any minute. Why is he pushed to attend tuition? Because the school teachers do not teach anything and if they do it, they do not do it well and if the students raise doubts, they scold them and make them sit for their  incompetence. Though they did not clear the Teachers’ Eligibility Test the government had conducted a few months back, they still shamelessly bossed around at schools, bullying the children, not doing their duty properly. Yes they have failed. But why has not the government taken any action on them? Why are those unfit people holding on to their seats yet? But that shall be a question to the government. What about Krishna now? When  should Krishna attend tuition classes? Well, it is only a matter of two hours after school, every day in the evening.

What kind of a school is that? Why should he start so early? Is the school too far away? These might be the questions that might arise in our minds. But what was really happening? The school had stopped teaching the IX grade syllabus to the IX grade students where Krishna too belonged and have started teaching them  grade X syllabus and extra time! In our great country, especially in Tamilnadu, education is very important and particularly the end of grade X and the end of grade XII examinations are very crucial. The more marks you  score, the more chances you have to become a doctor or an engineer. Other professions are not even in the list. Even if the child wants to become something else, the parents want their children to be either doctors or engineers. Why? You will get more money!!! – They say. There is no need to understand anything and learn in India, at least if you are in Tamilnadu. All that you have to do is to show the numbers. How can someone get good marks in grade X exams when they have not learnt grade IX portions? Oh! We are forgetting something, you just need to get marks. It doesn’t matter whether you understand what you are learning or not. The parents here, at Tamilnadu love their children a lot. They cannot see them suffer by learning but they should somehow get good marks. So, they would vote any party into power that would diminish the standards of the syllabus and encourage  the teachers to ask solved examples from behind the text book as the questions. If the person setting the question paper changes even the punctuation mark in the question while preparing the public exam question paper, then there are parent teachers’ associations that are ready to file cases against the exam control under “out of syllabus” plea. So it is all about memorising and reproducing and that is what people call in India, at least in Tamilnadu that is strictly being followed. All hail democracy and the government! We have all become nothing more than external hard drives for computers that can store information in memory and exactly reproduce the same.

Oh screw the system I say! What about the teachers? Can’t they at least oppose the system? After all they are the ones who are ru(i)n(n)ing the system. Aha! When they are ineligible for the job, how can they oppose anything? They would not even understand the system in the first place, for their logical brains do not  exist. Who is the root cause of all these stupid problems? PARENTS!  - Simple answer. If you are a parent who is scowling at me right now for blaming you, then think about what you are right now. Don’t you keep telling your kids to either become an engineer or a doctor? Have you not

set any one of these as your child’s target even without his or her knowledge? Are you okay with whatever career your child wants to pursue? Have you ever questioned the government about such a bad system? Have you voted the right person? You are the ones who are setting examples to your kids aren’t you? You claim to be the reason for what your kid is today and what he or she might become tomorrow and only if the kid grows  up  to be a handsome money earner. To you, success has always been earning more money isn’t it? If you are a rich parent who has enough for generations, you might not have such trains of thought or if you are a very poor parent, even then you would not have any such thoughts, for whatever your child wants to be, you would have been supportive. But the majority is the middle class families or as the buzz word goes today, the clan of “Aam aadmi”.

How does this affect the quality of the system and the education in the country on the whole? Well, here it is. There are kids who work as per their parents’ intentions and there are kids who have their own individuality who do not perform well under that amount of pressure that the PARENTS put on them to improve the numbers on the report cards. The former ones are the loved children and the latter ones are not liked by their parents that much. Today, like education, parenting has also become a business. I pay for you to go and attend the best school in town and I want good returns in terms of marks, so that I could tell my peers gladly  about the same and boast about paying so much for that prestigious college or school or whatever it is. Everyone cares for what the others would think about them. What does my child want? What would make him or her happy? What talent has he or she got and how can we help him or her build that? Not all parents think on these lines. Of course there cannot be a world without understanding parents. But India, at least Tamilnadu is one place where this prestige issue of having a son or daughter in medical or engineering college could be seen very commonly.

So how does this affect the quality of teachers anyway? Only those who fail to gain an entry into the engineering and medical colleges, the ones who have no scores on the card and on the bank pass books have to search to become someone else in the society. Yes! There are no entrance exams, critical and logical thinking is prohibited in this state! Yes, if you do not get the marks, if your parents have a heavy wallet, you could become an engineer or a doctor! Everything is based on numbers dude! I have a few batch mates who bought their way  into medical seats and engineering seats. No wonder why bridges suddenly collapse, why treatment fails and  patients die, wrong disease diagnosis, etc. I am scared to even go to a doctor these days. Would he know anything at all? How will I know? So, when both money and marks do not help, parents want  their children  to  go in search of the  next best profession. Since education is the next big business, they say “My child, go  now and get a science degree, get a B. Ed and then join the school to teach little children. Teaching is a holy profession too. In fact, it is holier than being a doctor. They are paying well these days!” So, people who do not have a choice become teachers. Since they are never used to “understanding”, they are unable to make people understand and the chain continues to rust. I am so fortunate that I belong to one of the last batches of students who had at least few inspiring teachers at school and at the university who shaped me up. Now I go to my school, all those teachers I had have either retired or have left the job because it is not that rewarding in terms of satisfaction.

I have no superpowers to change things overnight. Not I have a political or monetary backup to influence those who are capable of facilitating the needed reforms. I am just a stupid ENGINEER who

loves science, stranded in the streets, not certain about anything! Nor can I call myself a crusader and have people behind my back to support my cause. This is a cursed land, Tamilnadu. We are scared about changes. We do not want any alternatives and however ad the present options are, we prefer to be with them. We want a peaceful life. We do not want to experiment with lives. We want it all easy going. No wonder all revolts and riots for any social cause including the freedom struggle had so much effect in this land. We would only change if those so called LEADERS of ours change. When they announced the Teachers’ Eligibility Test, I expected a change, a scrutiny, a reform. But nothing seems to have changed. Is everything a political stunt and nothing else? What happened to the case on the private schools in the state that collected more money from the parents? They are  still happy and collect the same fees. Nothing happened to them. What is change? Where is the way? I  wonder… All those students and parents out there who are reading this, can we bring about the real change and not just talk about it?