Story Of An Average College Student – Passing Out With Good Marks Without Studying At All

It was 7pm on the day before my university exams were to begin. I rushed to the market near the college waiting to buy the “Guess papers”, or “Question Banks”, 50-70 pages of which are supposed to contain the entire syllabus of a particular subject.  Since I didn’t have time to study myself, I chose the well trodden path of going with the “Question Banks”.

As I started studying them, I remembered the advice from an illustrious senior of mine (one who must not be named):

1. “Guess paper ka pehla question zarur kariyo, pakka fasega (sic)” (Meaning the first question of the question bank is a certainty in the Question paper)
2. “Long Answer 6 page ke aur short answer 3 page ke likhiyo, chahe kuch aata ho ya nhi(sic)” (Fill 6 pages for the long answers and 3 pages for the short answers, it doesn’t matter whether you know the answers or not)
3. “MCQ (Multiple Choice Questions) puch ke kar liyo (sic)” (Ask the answers of the multiple choice questions from those around you).

Cutting the long story short, I followed these steps and graduated comfortably; as did a several thousand others.

This is the story of, I presume, a lot of the small town colleges and universities which cater to the majority of the population of the country.

The very fact that I passed and even got good marks when I hadn’t studied at all felt so ridiculous. Is this what we offer to thousands of students who want to study? A known set of 50 questions which will always be there in the question papers? And then we question why our colleges do not match global standards?

I tried thinking about the reasons that explain this condition and it just made me nauseous, there are just too many of them….

The major reasons which came to mind are:

1. The colleges are simply and insanely overloaded. The college I refer to has 2000-3000 students in a B.Com class. The class has a sitting capacity of less than a thousand. The college cannot accommodate all the students if they do come to college and that says something.
2. This points to another fact that the students mostly do not go to the college. The major reason given by them is that the teachers are not present there to teach.
3. The teachers in the college have salaries greater than Rs. 50,000/-(some have salaries even greater than a lakh per month) for working 4-5 hours a day and they still find it burdensome to go to college.
4. The student unions have made it a point to oppose any change that the management proposes irrespective of the fact that the change is positive or negative. I have never seen such inertia ever before.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CURRENT SITUATION? The government? The students? The teachers? Or does the answer to this question really matter? We’ll never know.

THE EASIEST THING TO SAY HERE (BUT NOT INCORRECTLY) IS “WE NEED MORE COLLEGES”

There, I said it, but what is to prevent these new colleges from becoming like the existing colleges? The administration would be similar, the students would be similar, and the teachers would be similar. What can be done to bring these colleges at par with the best in the world? Or even with the best in India because there is a sea of difference between the colleges of the big cities and the smaller towns.

1. We need a system of incentivizing teachers with the improvement of the performance of the students. NOT ON THE BASIS OF THE MARKS A STUDENT OBTAINS, BUT THE IMPROVEMENT HE SHOWS FROM THE PREVIOUS YEARS. That is, the remunerations to teachers should be productivity linked.
2. Working in shifts. Some colleges do have evening classes but it is not a norm, at least around where I live. It has to be popularized because it helps in the optimum utilization of the college resources.
3. We need a more regularly updated syllabus. My university syllabus hasn’t changed much over the past 15 years
4. DO AWAY WITH THE STUDENT UNIONS! They cause nothing but chaos in the campus, threatening teachers, “allegedly” causing gang wars in the colleges, resisting any kind of change that the administration wishes to make.
5. In this era of marketing, there has to be an attempt for building a brand value of the college. So when the student takes admission he will be aware that he has got into a great college and he has to work hard to deserve the place.
6. Lastly, Corruption. Corruption is something which has to be tackled systemically and requires legislation and intent. There is corruption in appointments, handling of college funds etc

I hope stories like “Bina padhe zyada ache number aate h university me” (You get more marks when you don’t study) which is a common folklore among students, become a thing of the past soon.