Published in DNA, Mumbai on 21st Jan 2006

The downside of being a topper…

It was the 1st time in 21yrs. that I came 1st in my college. It isn’t that I used to be the one among the top 10; in fact I had flunked in engineering for three years thus ‘blackening’ the face of my family unable to show my face in the society and all that…

Now you would think I would be gloating about my success and be proud of it, no it is not so. On the flip side being a topper in FYBA not at all satisfies me. Reason? There are reasons, read on further…

What do we do? Mug up things and ‘vomit’ them in the exams; exam-oriented studies, no conceptual thinking, no analysis of what we are studying, no connection between what we study and what the market needs from us. What’s the use of such studies, only to test our mugging skills? Subjects like humanities should be made more practical. These can be made more interesting and useful only when the syllabus is connected to the outside world. Humanities contain society, its changes, human beings and their behavior with the society. The hows and the whys of humanities can’t be learnt within the four walls of the classroom. Students have to go out understand, analyze the situation, and conceptualize it before they appear for any kind of exam. The syllabus should be devised in such a way that the students automatically conceptualise things and don’t mug up.

In today’s scenario, there is no exposure to the students during the course of the study. It is only after a basic education, which we unfortunately call as graduation, that the student is exposed to the market needs. Until then he is cloistered in the four walls of the classroom. And what if the student is weak in mugging? He then can’t fill the pages of the answer-sheet and thus scores less in the exams, then is branded as a ‘duffer’ since quantity matters not the quality. Nobody looks for the type of answer you’ve written nut for no. of supplements you’ve attached to your main. Why the hell are we studying? Moreover some actually attempt suicide for this ‘30 gm certificate’ called as graduation. Don’t they understand that what they are studying under the name of graduation has nothing in it except for a stamp? But even they would have known this does the present system of education lets them to forget it? Does the marks-culture; percentage-culture lastly that’s hovering let them forget it? This pressure trickles down from this kind of a culture to the society, then to the parents lastly to the students who try and do suicides! Again this isn’t only in humanities, while talking to students of different careers they had the same thing to say-“At last marks matter”. How can one judge the intellectuality of a student only through marks?

This 100 yr. old system of education has to be revamped, right from scratch. Give importance to projects, seminars, and field trips so that the students’ personalities are developed at the same time they also learn life-skills, which no subject in graduation teaches. Education right now doesn’t provide knowledge it just gives you information because unless and until information is practically applied it remains as it is and it is only after application that it transforms into knowledge. Knowledge of that kind remains in the students’ mind even after they’ve done their graduation.

Today I’m the saddest person by being a topper. What I’m studying or rather mugging up is just for the heck to complete my graduation and show people that unfortunately I too am one amongst you who has given up original thoughts and succumbed to textbook.

--Sachidananda.
(Eternal Happiness)
(24-01-2007)