It begins as soon as we turn 4 or 5 and continues forever. The unending road of exams and entrance exams. Entrance exams, as the name suggests are exams for filtering people for entry into a course or college mostly. To ensure fair opportunity, college administrations and school heads take examinations. These are mostly related to the course or college one wants to enter. Fair and good, from a huge population how else can one select limited number of people for a specific purpose. We decide based on parameters, which come out from these exams.
So what is the purpose of these tests?
Well, apart from filtering students, these exams serve as a recognition tool. They tend to identify candidates most suitable for a particular course. For example, for getting a seat in a designing course, one would expect the candidate to have a creative aspect to their personality, a general idea of designing concepts and some proficiency in aptitude. When searching for a candidate for a culinary school, one would expect the person to have basic knowledge of culinary arts, apart from being interested in the field. When selecting a person for an engineering college one would expect the person to possess problem solving abilities, mathematical abilities, reasoning abilities. All this seems good, seems logical. Then where is the problem?
The hardworking people of India are a major threat to the philosophy of the entrance examinations. The problem with hardwork is it can make anything possible. In a country where higher education is decided more by the monetary rewards it has to offer, jobs available, social status and seldom by interest, hardwork is a concern.
To understand the extent of influence hardwork has let us take few major flags.
Preparing students for the entrance exams has become a business in itself. With success stories being highlights of these institutions, it sells a dream that anything is possible. They have designed courses where anyone can crack any exam. The average price of being taught in these institutions lies around 1.5 lacs(based on a report in TOI).
There exists a city solely dedicated to preparing students for "cracking" these entrance exams. Before getting into why this is wrong or how this is affecting the youth, a little knowledge of the need of such institutions needs to be understood.
The prime fodder for the flourishing of these institutes is the deep rooted notion of status and money existing in our society. Where majority population is still struggling to meet the basics, Engineering, Medical, CA are fields seen with utmost respect and a way out of mediocrity. In the comparatively more educated families, the fear is greater. Looking around seeing most people of a family graduating from top colleges of the country, being a child to engineer or doctor, conditions the child towards this goal subconsciously. One cannot blame the parents or relatives as a lot of times, this conditioning is sub conscious.
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