Indians schools have produced numerous scientists, philosophers, astronomers, engineers and so on. But with such an immense population and such huge potential, it’s quite surprising that still no school has climbed up in the top 100 schools in the world in any stream. We migrate to other developed and developing countries for graduation and higher education like Spain, South Africa, Australia, Singapore and so on but the vis-à-vis is almost negligible if we call out for strength. Despite having so many ngineers passing from different streams through our “sacred” IITs and NITs, we still can’t manufacture arms; weaponry and heavy electrical machinery in India. Instead, we export and purchase a huge fraction from countries like USA, Russia, and surprisingly Iran.
Where do we lack? What are the bugs averting our system to function properly? Why, despite of government spending a whopping amount in education, economy and infrastructure, we are still behind other western countries? Why even after noticeable growth in technology, there are so many loopholes in our system?
The answer to these questions my friends is what we should look for rather than contemplating which color dress was it (golden-white or black-blue)? Or who have what to say over a, we-won’t-bother-to-understand-the-concept or let’s-add-some-spices-and-boost-TRP on a “roast” show.
There is a saying that if you want to clean the sacred river Ganga, you have to start from, ‘Gangotri’. It’s quite appropriate here. Despite the government having proposed plans for opening thousands of new schools in villages across the country and promoting education, the actual scenarios tells another story. Ever tried visiting a government primary school in the nearby village/locality/town? You will get the picture. Faded red/pink buildings, no proper sanitation facilities, children sitting on floor reciting same old numbers and alphabets for years, which they should have learned long ago, teachers showing up on their will, treating students, however they like resulting in children skipping school and finding some work instead where they could gain a couple of rupees for the family, help improving their life economically.
Ironically the mindset of so called parents in cities and towns is not so advanced either; as their focus lies, whether their child is securing prime rank or not? Whether he/she is preparing for Olympiad or not? Whether we should send him/her in engineering/medical coaching’s from 6th grade or 8th?
Talking about engineering schools which are somewhat fundamentally foundation building institutes, where instead of enhancing the practical implementation skill of concepts, student finds it more advantageous to cram up the whole syllabus two days before the exam and decorate transcript with decent pointers. And guess what? Instead of realizing the devastating consequences, administration and society is supporting the idea, because everyone wants good grades and a decent job.
Very few people are oriented in innovating, creating, struggling to change something which can touch people’s lives or make some difference for good. And again, even if people are oriented in doing so, that is almost minuscule compared to the huge potential we hold considering our population. Do we really want this? No. All we got to do is change the way we see it. And don’t forget to hope because hope is a good thing and no good thing ever dies.
