“Engineering or medical?” texted an old friend.
“Er. Verma Sir. The best Chemistry tutor in the city.” Read out a pamphlet.
“What I’ll teach you next has got nothing to do with your CBSE syllabus, but it will help you to crack your competition exams”, said the school mathematics teacher.
“The new batch for IIT preparations starts from Monday”, said a pre-recorded voice on the phone call.
So it’s all over the city. Medical and Engineering coaching institutions which guarantee a rank in the ‘top-whatever’ list. Students running for their classes at so-and-so Sir’s best Physics or Chemistry or Mathematics or Biology classes as soon as it strikes 5 in the morning. The benches in the schools are empty. The students are, instead warming the seats (and hands) of private tuition classes. The race has begun. They have to get into IIT Roorkee or AIMS Delhi, or they shall be termed as useless students who must have passed their tenth standard with third division, or in present scenario 6 CGPA.
They score badly in their Higher Secondary School examinations, no problem for them. They don’t get into the top shot engineering or medical colleges, it is a matter of suicide for them. No doubt this is the reason the very first class that one takes after passing their class 10 (irrespective of the first class in school or coaching), the first line they hear is “To crack IIT/AIPMT you must…..” And usually, the last line in the last class of class 12 is “Best of luck for your AIEE/JEE/AIPMT.”
Sounds like a perfect story of an Indian kid, but wait. Where is the term “Board Examinations” in the story? Well, it must not be an integral part of the story so it’s not mentioned, right? Maybe that is the reason there are no coaching institutions to tell them the secret to score more in boards. Or maybe that is the reason why even teachers in school focus more on ‘additional reading’ rather than CBSE syllabus because that is supposed to help them pass the competitions. Maybe the term ‘Board examination’ is not mentioned because there are not many students who don’t want to fight those competitions and instead get 97% in boards to get into Delhi University and grow up to become a social activist or a writer or a designer or a journalist or a painter.
The hysteria that follows after the class 10 boards sidelines a very important section of students, the section who are going to grow up into intellectuals who will guide the country in the correct direction, make the country a colourful place to live in, confident, dynamic individuals. That group which does not want to be a part of the 8 am to 10 pm job, and live life like a robot.
Who is going to train these think-tanks to get into their dream college? No one. All the fabulous teachers are busy training future (uncertain) engineers and (uncertain) doctors. Which teacher can guarantee their students a perfect learning experience without using the words IIT or Medical? No one, because half the population does not even acknowledge the existence of those students.
So in the end, they are the ones who fight alone, without the guidance received by their counterparts. In the end, they are the happier section of the society, because they chose a profession for themselves, and did not let the society choose for them. And what they get in the end is nasty comments about how they could not even qualify a simple engineering test and instead got into a useless Arts College.
