Watch what you like; but study what the system wants...

The last post triggered memories and alot of angst about the school-college education system in our country.

This whole subject-stream selection was traumatic for me. From wanting to study Literature and History, I qualified as an Engineer but never worked as one.

The elder kid went through the same difficulty during subject selection but luckily, she had only two possible streams of study in her shortlist.

The younger one had to make her choices last year, but she is still confused.

It is because, unlike DTH and Cable operators who were forced by TRAI to stop making us pay for ‘bundle packs’ and let us pick and choose the channels we wanted to watch; the education boards and colleges still insist on ‘bundles’. If you like Math -but select Economics instead of Chemistry or Physics in high school-you don’t qualify for any of the Engineering or Medical entrance exams. That’s another thing that you want to go to Engineering college because the top global banks go there for campus recruitment.

I thought times had changed. I though the ‘Doctor-Engineer-or nothing’ philosophy had faded away with the last century. Now the kids have choices. Now there are so many other options.

But when we got into the college application mode and I started looking up the numbers, I realized so much that had not changed. Law and Design have got added ‘acceptable’ careers. Liberal Arts has become a new entrant-but are still being looked upon as fancy-rich-kids colleges instead of something that can change a person’s life, lift a family out of poverty kind of a career. So, lakhs of students still spend the best years of their lives slogging to clear entrance test.

Private colleges step in to provide for the burgeoning numbers, at burgeoning fees. And as for those who cannot afford them, and do not manage to grab those 0.5% seats in good government institutions, what happens to them?