Education = $

It was one such Sunday afternoon, after a heavy lunch in Barbeque Nation; I didn’t have many options to pick. The weather outside wasn’t so pleasing, scorching sun made me uneasy. To my surprise I found a flux welcoming me to a speech delivered by an educational expert (most importantly in an air conditioned hall). It was a large hall with a flocking crowd, lined up for a motivational speech. The crowd had a unique mixture of students and parents. Once the guy in a navy blue tuxedo (Expert!!!) stepped in, there was a thunderous applause.

In a flick, lights went off, to turn on the LCD projector, thrusting a bright image on the giant screen erupted. To my surprise, all I could see was a three letter word ‘RTE’. Very few in the audience were able to come up with the correct expansion for the abbreviated word. Right to Education entitles free and compulsory education for the children of our country. With my palms resting my face and my eyelids are pretty eager to come down. To my horror, they have already met once and next in queue were my grey cells.

It could be an agonizing lecture, but still had some salient features that left me thinking and ashamed. It was wise to discuss those excerpts of the expert here. Most information has been provided as if the expert speaks to us.

"The laws were perfectly penned to provide quality education. Unfortunately they work only in papers; a child can define the word ‘EDUCATION’, but he or she never appreciates this entity. There a gap between the expert committee that frames the syllabus and the schools that tries to teach. Once I happen to watch a vendor, who was crushing canes for making juice, I didn’t find much difference between the vendor and the schools that exist now.

Recent TV interviews left me shattered; schools have started luring toppers from other schools by kind and cash. Schools have become more of concentration camps (during world wars), channeled with n number of tests and personal agony. It’s more of a sin to talk about games in residential schools and most of them have scrapped grounds, paving way for some more slaves (in the name of students).

The current curriculum is a perfect foil for a disrupted life; a life that needs a recipe of games, watching cartoons, tantrums and a bit of sheepishness and all this becomes a distant dream or Neanderthal. The routine packed with special classes and extra special classes are emotionally draining, every now and then someone giving extra tips on how and when to study???

Every week there’s a always a bloke trying to put all the pessimistic attitudes in us, by giving us a picture of current percentages for engineering (98%) and medicine (99.99%).  After all this hue and cry, lost adolescence and joy of schooling, some (in fact many) shell out lakhs for a seat in a professional college. It’s more of a pride that takes centre stage, to see ourselves or our child in an engineering or medical college.

During the first day of my college, there was a self introduction session, to break the ice. Very few were able to make a proper introduction about themselves. I was forced to seek help from my fellow mate, to introduce myself. This could be a funny situation, on the flip side it portrays the inability to define who we are.

My biology teacher often makes this statement with a half smile, “  after 12 years of schooling in a English medium, can u write a letter without mistakes??? “ I still find it difficult to write a letter without errors; often my letter has all tenses shuffling across. To err is human and to forgive is divine; but to all my errors, my educational system is the perfect alibi. The new jargon should be perhaps, “educational systems have ruined me”."

I don’t want to make you furious by adding my suggestions or ideas. I m no expert dressed in blazers, with sarcastic jokes to keep the crowd alive but I appreciate where I stand now. I have the desired cognizance to address the crude reality and adroit fantasy. My phone buzzed with a forward, making me smile “Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance”.

PS: Thanks for the pic and a more apt title for my blog http://www.1-funny-quotes.com/the-education-system-is-financially-crippling.html