A short story, a bigger question

June 18, 2011 in Education, Responsibility

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I was going through a short story by Chetan Bhagan which recently got published in Hindustan Times (You can find the story here). He wrote about a boy eager for a suicide after failing to get admissions in so called prestigious institutions like SRCC and Stephens despite getting a ninety two percent in his school, and being a school topper. A sarcasm on the present education system, the story not only entertain the readers, but also left me pondering with a large number of questions. Some of them being:

Is it really necessary to get into colleges like IIT’s, SRCC, etc to get the maximum out of you? Personally, I believe that these things do boost up your skills. You grow smarter, with the smartest.

The brightest lads of the country, which enter these colleges do they really take the benefit of them or end up screwing things up. (Sorry for the use of the word). I have myself seen people forgetting what they came here for, and are disillusioned by things that appears to be charming…

How can people even think of suicide? Leaving suicide apart, people cry like anything in their colleges saying they are feeling homesick and other reasons. But who gave them the right to do so. Aren’t they suppose to think of their parents who are sitting somewhere else and would never like to see their child cry? I shudder to even think how they should feel when their child ends up his life or something similar because of things like college pressure.

Well, who is to be blamed for the dismal condition of higher education system? Our education system, our professors, our parents or we ourselves. A smarter person would discard the question by saying of course all of us. But would that really serve the purpose.

The time of our senior secondary schooling when we are supposed to learn things, we end up mugging for our dream colleges. So where should we learn the things that we ignored while we were in school?

The list of questions is never ending. And the discussion might not even help anyone. But the whole point is to learn to tackle problems, and not run away from them. Indeed a good college is necessary, but is not getting a good college a big enough reason to end up your life.

We might spend up days thinking who is to be blamed for this, but does that really matter? I believe the best of utilization of the resources at the hand is the optimal way of handling things. I myself am not able to do that at times, but I wish my readers can

P.S :

How many of you would agree to the statement that “learning is fun”? If you can, believe me you are really lucky.

Are we really satisfied with the efforts that we are putting in. If we are not shouldn’t we first work out on it, before criticizing others.

Is IIT really producing donkeys or rather smarter donkeys?

I would be leaving tomorrow to Bangalore for  a week. Bbye blog.