Edge-ucation?/lost among pigeons and crumbs.

Edge-ucation?/lost among pigeons and crumbs.

A student of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), where a friend of mine studies, committed suicide the night before last. This was the fourth incident of its kind in four years! The reason for this suicide is not known, but most of these are said to have happened because of attendance problems. Students failing to maintain 75% attendance in each semester are expelled from the institution and are required to start from the first semester if they wish to finish their degree.

A couple of weeks back I was discussing an issue taken up by a lecturer, a senior official at the RBI, at the BSE with a friend. At the end of the conversation she said, “You seem to have been preparing hard for group discussions (GD).” (management students require doing so to get admissions in B-Schools).

So everything one ‘does’, all conversations ‘made’ are to pass an examination or go through a GD! Of course, a leading coaching institution chooses to call it ‘Edgeucation’.

The Tsunami led the students of TISS to demand from the institution a relief camp in Tamil Nadu. On being told that it would happen when TISS assesses the situation and sets a concrete objective, the ‘seniors’ launched a procession. Now that the trip is finalized, the seniors want to wait until the on-campus recruitment is done with.

Students will have to do 30 days of extra field-work if they opt out of the Tamil Nadu trip. That is what happened of it. The students now are upset as it was supposed to be a voluntary trip! India surely doesn’t need the compulsory military service rule.

What is the purpose of education? Sounds like a very clichéd melodramatic question to me; but am quite often led to think. Stories of fifteen-year-olds ending their lives because they did not score too well in their tenth grade exams are not new news that are printed in newspapers every June, when results are declared. Students distributing sweets for passing the exams (is a custom in India), and at the same time are weeping rivers because they scored ‘only’ 94% and will not get admission in VJTI (one of the top engineering schools) are a common sight.

Why? Why when Kerela boasts of 99% literacy rate because 99% of the people there can write their names? I have no answer. Seems we all get lost among pigeons and crumbs.