Swadeshe pujyate raja vidyan sarvatra pujyate

Drona asks Ekalavya to cut off his right thumb as a gift to the mentor. Ekalavya readily chops it off resulting into his significant degradation as a skilled warrior. A detailed & critical study of the incident demands separate attention. Then you must be thinking why mention this story here? Even taken literally, this story reminds me of the current education system & the syllabus structure where the students are asked mercilessly to forsake their imagination, creative thought-process & to pay a hefty amount for being taught certain stereotype topics. And the students blindly do so.

Why do the students agree? Because they trust the institutes. Is this the only reason? No. They do so because their views on study have been manipulated for decades to such a level that the common instinct is that education means scoring high marks & getting a high-paying job. This gut-feeling has gripped the society so tight that a huge pressure of getting A+ grades is accumulated on the student right from his early school days. He is squeezed & squashed continuously to be an all-rounder but hardly gets any time to love what he is learning. Even if he manages to love one subject or two, he is forbidden by the whole education system to explore the subjects, to do something creative. Any such step is tagged as ‘out of syllabus’.

So, does the syllabus itself cover everything that no advanced study is required? Not at all. See how the structure dupes the students-

Take a Computer Science student for example. If you ask him how many programming languages do you know? He will recite a long list of names- Java, C++, SQL, C, DS etc. Impressive indeed. Okay. Now ask him how did you manage to learn all of them within 4 years? –“2-3 language on each semis.” Now ask some deeper questions on any programming language. I bet, the boy will give you a perplexed look. Why? Well, you know, too many cooks spoil the broth. The syllabus had so much of it that not even a single language had been taught properly. Even the logic – the mother of everything, is hardly clarified. Rarely they are taught what is Memory management. 4-5 programming languages are a far cry. The students don’t get any inkling of this horrible damage done to their career. They are made to get the feel of practical knowledge through some ‘projects works’ which actually work as tools of passing the exams for the students & tools for earning some more money for the teachers. But alas! they don’t offer any real-life problem solution at all.

Why only Computer Science students? Look at a simple sophomore with low marks at H.S. exam. Being ousted from the gorgeous world of doctors & engineers, he opts for a pvt. Engineering college. Why? Simply because of the placement trap. & some opt for the ‘Multimedia’ course. Reason? Quick jobs after a quick course.

Probably, the drawing classes he attended in his school days or the cartoon programs on the TV  motivated him to be an animator. Sadly, nobody is there to tell him that this is not enough to pursue the course. Moreover, he is convinced by the ‘Multimedia institutes’ that even without doing drawing, he can easily be established as an 3D animator! Where to know drawing correctly, you need to be adept at drawing human anatomy, need a clear understanding of the perspective view, they can make you an animator out of nothing! The course they are offering must be magical enough to turn the muggles into Hogwartians 🙂

Even the course structure is shabby, time-worn. Neither the traditional, nor the technological courses offer upgraded, industry-oriented edgy syllabi. Say, for example, Cross platform application. The subject is 20-25 years old as at that time computers didn’t support cross platform file transfer. Even now, a Android phone doesn’t support an iPhone file & vice versa. Now if the student reads only about the good old computers, how do you expect him to have a sound, practical knowledge on the subject?

The dearth of knowledge is so acute that the job-seekers even loss their common sense. A deep understanding of Maths & Physics is a must for doing Programming. We read these two subjects from childhood. Don’t we? But when I take interviews, I sadly discover that 8 out of 100 students can actually relate to the simple Maths tricks. All the questions asked appear so alien to them that they mistake those for questions on the Gaming Industry.

As the ill luck would have it, he bangs the door of every possible company with the hope of getting a decent job, but is turned down for the lack of his knowledge. Or even if he manages to get a placement during “campassing”, he becomes a target prey of the recession firing. The MNC trains him during the probationary period only to the extent the company needs him. Thus a candidate never gets 360 degree knowledge. Had he himself honed his skills during the probationary period, he would never be jobless.

Loads of marks with little or no dynamic knowledge- is this what you call education? education is delivering dynamic knowledge. The syllabi should be developed every now & then to keep abreast of  the time. You may ask me, or as I have been asked numerous times, what’s your role here? How to study more? Where to get more info? Who will tell us? Look, if there is a will, there is a way. Also, I believe, if you can start your day in the morning, then you can do everything. Read books. Books are correctly said to be a man’s best friend. Why books only? There is Google the great, there are forums for every topic you want. Go. Join them. It’s so much easier now. Want to learn high-end technology? think before you try for that. Have you known everything about the basic technology yet?

“What do you see?” Drona asked Arjuna during an arrow shooting training. he had placed a clay bird on the top of a tree & asked his disciples to shoot the bird in its eye. Some said “I see the bird on the tree top.” Some answered, “I see the bird”. But Arjuna replied with rapt attention- “I see the eye of the bird”. Like Arjuna, be always focused to your goal. And the goal is not getting a job, neither getting high marks; it is getting real knowledge. And try to be like Ekalavya- who did self-upgradation as his mentor refused to make him his protege. These days you will get lots of professional courses, but the sole dependence on these may only make you an empty vessel that sounds much. You certainly don’t want that. Do you? Talent requires no language. If you are talented, the world will recognize your lingo. Swadeshe pujyate raja vidyan sarvatra pujyate- a king is respected in his own country, but a wise man is universally respected.

You can read more at my blogArijit Bhattacharyya