Today I am going to talk about our flea infested education system. There are millions of complains that I can list down, but I will talk about the issues I am facing today, right now…
Maharashtra government’s new rule, starting from this year onwards: you have to have your roots in Maharashtra to be a “valid” candidate, which means, your father and mother need to have been born and brought up in Maharashtra. This is so uncalled for. My mom was born and brought up in Mumbai, my dad came here when he was 16 yrs old, I was born here, and stayed here all my life, but still that doesn’t make me a “valid” candidate.
What does that change about me? Why does my place of birth really matter in my education? Why should everything else but my marks be of such a huge concern?
Why cant we grow out of our regressive tendencies? Why are we still trying to live in the dark ages? Why cant merit be the driving force of our country instead of caste and creed and race and place of birth and all the other irrelevant factors? Why am I denied privileges just because my father was not born in a particular place? Why should I suffer? I may be more eligible, meritoriously than a person who has his “roots” here…
Why is merit underplayed so much? The government’s policy towards eduction is so myopic? If I am born and brought up in Maharashtra, why do I need to show my domicile certificate in the first place? Aren’t my school, 10th, 12th, degree certificates proof enough that I am and have been a “permanent” citizen of Maharashta? This is just dirty politics, conveniently wrapped up in the label of administration. It is just to eliminate “outsiders”, and even when the people are very much part of the state and the city, this is just one way of being partial.
The education system is one organization that you expect to be objective in its approach and in handling the matters at hand. But evidently, that is not the case in this country. We boast of having so many IITs and world class facilities there. How much are we concerned about other subjects that are not considered vocational? How much have we done for the field of humanities? Are there any institutions like IITs that promote subjects like psychology, sociology, history and so on? This is exactly what encourages herd mentality in students. All people want a career in which they can grow and be satisfied on the professional front at least. But then if there are no career options in the subjects that people are really interested in, then they might opt to pursue courses that do ensure a job, irrespective of whether they are really interested in the field or not. The vocational institutes then churn out robots who rote learn their course materials and become doctors and engineers who just cannot live without elaborate textbook definitions, and are blissfully unaware of the true real-life relevance of their subject matter.
It is an unending saga, and no amount of complaining and grumbling about things is going to help anyone. We just compromise on merit and overrate the importance of every irrelevant thing like caste, race, religion, place of birth, zodiac signs, grandmother’s birthdays, birthmarks on your siblings, your great grandfather’s case history and your neighbour’s retirement plans.
