RAJU G. MENDEZ
Raju G. Mendez highlights a critical issue within the education system, particularly the intense pressure and often detrimental impact of competitive exams like IIT-JEE and NEET in India. This piece addresses several key points worth discussing further
Competitive exams are not the be-all and end-all of education, and there is something more to life than becoming a doctor or engineer with a huge salary package. Above all, the terrain complexities that pose challenges and societal prejudices that cloud the motives of one’s interests cannot be reduced to the umbrella of MCQs.
Pressure and Mental Health
The kinds of Suicide at Kota Rajasthan in India, it seems, do not make us shudder anymore, and perhaps we have taken it for granted that life is essentially a rat race that praises success and stigmatizes failure. Those unable to stand the pressure of this hyper-competitive culture or do not conceive its rationale of social Darwinism are seen as psychologically weak and emotionally vulnerable, being deemed unworthy.
Coaching Centers or ‘ factories’?
Coaching factories, notorious in nature, are to be booked. Ironically, students’ suicides have not yet caused any impact upon our disintegrity of affinity with these coaching centers. This year itself, already 12 young aspirants have taken their lives by suicide in Kota. Until and unless one’s child takes the extreme step, the insensitivity continues, and we dare to believe that the sole significance of education is instrumental and ruthless.
To our dismay, the emolument, it seems, is the benchmark to measure the knowledge and skills of students. They are forced to suppress whatever diverts them from being scapegoats to strategic learning for cracking the hugely problematic standardized tests like IIT-JEE or NEET.
The innovative spirit that is predominantly the matter of concern to prove the mettle of the students, the faculty of imagination of the young, can never be discarded or sidelined. Even though the gravity of the anguish of the students in connection with the very recent scam related to NET and NEET is much higher than one can imagine, not even a single bold step to question or rationalize the prudence of these categories of tests has been taken.
Standardized Testing Flaws
Notwithstanding that the technology has failed to run the show the way it was supposed to, the significant question is: what is the relevance of the MCQ-centric standardized tests like NEET or JEE, which are faulty? The question paper leak remains only secondary in priority. Are these tests being conducted by dehumanized/computerized means, regardless of eliminating lakhs of young aspirants of vast knowledge, innovative spirit, high level of imagination and forte, and good personality traits?
Is the mode of the standardized test meant to eliminate quickly—almost like a lottery?
Is it not designed to select those who are inclined—intellectually and psychologically—to become engineers and doctors?
Does it adopt a belligerent strategy to think instantly without much reflection, tick the only correct answer on the OMR sheet, and thereby solve 180 riddles in physics, chemistry, and biology in 200 minutes?
The major pitfall of preparing for such an exam is negating the scope of a free, relaxed mind—the ability to go deeper into academic complexities, entertain ambiguities, and raise new questions. The very nature of these standardized tests spreads the red carpet for the proliferation of coaching centers.
Societal Expectations
About the coaching centers, do not place an intellectual or philosophical perspective on a great pedagogue or a creative teacher to groom the students to crack the tests. Instead, they simply need personnel only to impart certain time-tested strategies or techniques inscribed in success manuals discovered by them, to inculcate a culture of rote learning among the aspirants. Finally, the most excruciating thing is that, from dawn to dusk, the students are compelled to go through the harrowing sessions of endless drilling; a mechanical process of solving thousands of MCQs through weekly tests, monthly tests, and mock tests.
Educational Philosophy, Policy, and Reform
Thus, the realization that it is high time we sent our children not to such a mechanized world of education, but rather guide them to focus on their forte and find ways to tap their full potential as individuals, and if needed, seek the mentorship of those genuinely interested in the growth of the young, is the need of the hour.
A collapse of trust in the examination system amounts to a collapse in trust in the system as a whole. But then, when coaching center strategists replace great teachers, scholars, and pedagogues—and young people remain deprived of good literature—it signifies a dire need for change.
