?Tuition gangs? make the most of our education system
By Ruchi Ahuja
One of the central roles of education is ?preparing students for the future?. There are ways of looking at the future that rebound on what we do or don'tdo in the present.
The road to freedom often is a long one, but how do we learn to walk in our schools, our colleges in ways that display more foresight, more compassion and more solidarity? How do we learn to combine education and freedom with responsibility?
No doubt, our society is moving towards a higher literacy rate. But our government has failed in the sense that a common uniform platform has not been evolved for all the states.
It has been commented that much of what happens in our schools is about driving into the future whilst looking in the rear view mirror. Even if we question the cynical nature of this comment, we may see some truth in it.
Admittedly, there is a tremendous growth under the flagship of political guidance, which has created many professional colleges in every district of our country.
Every state has taken too much time and revenue to build an educational system but a majority of them do not have proper educational development.
Our human resource has captured global markets and has been successfully controlling commanding positions.
It is important, therefore, that appropriate attention is paid to the sort of education that is needed to prepare students for the future. This is a task for educators as we approach the new millennium?a time of transition which can be used to prompt deeper reflection on the direction and purpose of our education system.
An alarming factor that has emerged openly just to fulfil the needs of our ongoing education scenario is the energence of tutorials and leakage of question papers.
Charging hefty sums, in the range of Rs 65,000-75,000 per annum, these private tutorial institutes have become very profitable ventures.
Neither the Centre nor the States have come forward to rein them in. There are no checks or regulations on them. In the past a number of such institutes have been involved in paper leakages which are smartly camouflaged as sample papers.
Another fallout of this whole drama is that the student community is taken for a ride in the name of entrance examinations. Entrance exams are used as a mere tool by these nefarious institutes to boost their reputations. These ?tuition gangs? continue to rake in money at the cost of the poor middle class students.
