There was a time when 79 per centers were looked at with awe in the society.
Fast forward to 2011 & reverse the digits: one will see that even a 97% isn't good enough to secure a seat in a college of his choice.
Is it all about the demand for admission or Board exam results? Or is it about getting jobs? It might very well be that all of it is just in our head.
The problem lies with our country being one where only academics and radicals are respected. Pre-independence, the British saluted the Babus who cracked Civil Services Exams and hanged the radicals, yet both had tremendous respect. Today, either you are brilliant or you are a part of the underworld - these are perhaps, the only two ways of assuring yourself of a more or less secured life. But, since the 'underworld' isn't too much of an option for many, it leaves us with achieving excellence and that too in academics!
While caste certificates sell for lakhs, the meritorious (those who don't need them) study for jobs that'll fetch them lakhs. Such is the irony of the whole situation. Take for example, a child who slogs his ass off for the better part of his life, lands up in the mercy of a teacher - who narrowly managed to earn her degree. That teacher not knowing how much to mark him, evaluates him miserably. He scores badly, marks fall due to fate and he decides to do a Batman (without a Bat-suit of course) and jumps off a building!
...a brilliant mind lost in vain. They say its stress, I say it's all in the system!
From a country of thinkers and philosophers, if we intend to become a country of doers, what we actually need for starters is a well laid out system: clear, incorruptible and transparent. An application-skill based admission scheme can only do us good in this regard. What's the point if a 90 per center knows all rules of debit and credit but doesn't know how to apply them?
We need to work towards a pressure free evaluation system or one where a child is exposed to pressure systematically, that too starting from a young age. So that, when he is ready to face the world - pressure to him is not something he experiences only in the washroom!
