Education In India

I read this post (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-has-exam-system-not-education-system/articleshow/7977172.cms) on education in India. That india has exams and not education.

I have felt the same way. We tend to memorize things with the sole idea of passing or doing well in the exams without having any idea of what the subject is about and how it is relevant to us. Whether the subject is history or geography or maths or moral science.

It's a sad state of affairs. In Tamil Nadu especially, we have a habit of doing our masters and M Phils and PhDs and so on because we have nothing else to do. Such degrees are mostly without use (like degrees in Australia). One does it because one has nothing else to do and it feels good to put a lot of initials after your name.

The saddest thing is the quality of education and of the teachers in these schools and college, most of whom would not be recruited by the industry, especially in the private sector. What kind of education can you expect when:

• Education is seen as an end in itself by the person who gets educated. And not as a means to an end. What is the purpose of being educated when that education won't help you solve any problem in real life? I have seen 14 year old children being taught complex numbers (i =square root of "-1") in maths. When was the last time any of us used complex numbers?
• Education is seen as a means of making big bucks by industrialists who set up colleges and employ recently graduated people as lecturers and professors. They charge mega bucks from students for the education. The students are left with a degree at the end of the day. And the industry is left having to choose from this pool of people to recruit. The pool cannot be any more raw.

Maybe one day this will also change.

Additional reading:
http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-other-day-my-brother-was-telling-me.html