There are only two things that parents in India think their kids can't get enough of - food and studies. So its not surprising that education is taken pretty seriously over here. I mean for a long time it has been the only gateway to what is known as a "good life".

So despite the emphasis (bordering on coercion) on studies, its kinda surprising (even shocking) to see the dismal state of education in our nation. From the absolute importance of rote learning, to the pathetic teaching standards, and the complete breakdown of teacher-student interaction (to name a few ailments), there are problems aplenty that plague the system. Lets take a bottom-up approach to the problem. From the minute you enter the school system, the importance of mugging up anything and everything is stamped upon your psyche, defying any sense of logic or rationale whatsoever. What can one expect out of such a system but dignified robots? Even at the secondary level things don't get any better. There's just no difference in the way the different streams are taught. Whether its the sciences, commerce, humanities its all the same. But the ranking order among them is widely prevalent. Choice among them is governed not by where the interest lies but by the trivial notion as to what makes more sense in terms of future security. Even at the higher education level, our universities fare no better. You don't need to be rocket scientist to figure out that graduation should include more than just run of the mill assignments, and exams which test no analytical skills but what one has been able to mug up a few days before.

One may wonder if there's so much that ails the system why isn't anyone making a big hue and cry about it? The answer to that is pretty simple, what everyone wants at the end of this "academic" hell ride is a "secure future" which basically implies a fatass package which is seen as the ultimate in life to be considered "successful". Its only thing we seem to care about. Instead of thinking about what one wants top do in life and then working towards it we take the reverse approach. People think just because we have BPOs, NRIs like Sabeer Bhatia, Vinod Dham, LN Mittal etc, the rest of the world values our abilities. But what we must realize is that these examples are few and far in between. In any case most of the Indians working abroad are working for foreign companies and not as entrepreneurs. They are basically EMPLOYEES and not EMPLOYERS.

One may say we've had a few people who have defied the norm and emerged path-breaking. Yes, we had. M. S. Swaminathan who made India self reliant in food grains, Dr. Varghese Kurien who is the father of Amul milk movement, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam who dared to build missiles for India, Pt. Ravishankar who is the ambassador of the Indian music to the world. Such people though in small numbers, were always there. But they are not the products of this education system. This system did not teach them how to become innovators or entrepreneurs or artists. Had it done so, they would have been millions in numbers. These people were inspired themselves. To some of them, their education may have given the technical know-how (though it is hardly conceivable), but not the dream or the inspiration needed. It is education which should inspire one to become something one really wants to. Education should make you free, should make you experiment and it should make you ask uncomfortable questions. Ultimately, it should make you realize what you are, which sadly our system doesn't.