Education : A chase by the money grubbing souls!

As I picked up the Sunday Times delivered at the threshold of my house, a pamphlet fell out of it. It read: “Special discount offer for applicants! 100% result guaranteed! We have 14 years of successful educational and training experience.”  This was the 10^th tutorial advertisement I was seeing in a week. Once, I saw a billboard near my school of one of the typical overrated tuition classes, with pictures of students who looked unvaryingly lifeless and exhausted, labeled by their percentage in the grand board exams! Education has become a business, hasn’t it? I’m not denying the fact that private sector schools or educational institutions have improved the quality of education given to Indian students but here, I would also like to add an opinion: they've surely turned it into a business.

Private schools are known for their good infrastructure and co- curricular activities and other attractive facilities, but are they providing the quality education to match up with the regular high fee they charge? If they were, then I’m sure we wouldn’t be receiving 10 pamphlets in a week from these after-school classes. From what I’ve gathered, the reason why students feel the need to join these classes is for personal attention or if the teachers at their school are not good enough (and schools seldom replace them).Now, the schools and the tuition classes are profiting instead of the student, who had the full right to derive profits out of the service he was paying for.No wonder, after attending 7 hours of school, 2 to 3 hours of tuition and another 1 or 2 hour for assignments and home works, the students are bound to look lifeless and weary.Students are no robots. We’ve seen the result of exhausting them beyond capacity: suicides.

In short, make the education at school good enough so that students can understand the topic at sight, without having to look for after school classes. A teacher’s job should not end at scribbling a topic name on the board and telling the students to do “silent reading”. They have to rather get inside the student’s head.Schools have to shift their focus from attracting rich students to creating rich students. Good infrastructure, fancy uniforms and huge tennis courts and swimming pools are not going to help unless you fulfill the basic need of the students : good education.

Disclaimer : I’m not pointing fingers at each and every school or naming a school specifically. Any cunning, money grubbing school out there will know what I’m talking about!

                                                                                               - Arushi Sharma

And money always outweighs!