Thursday, May 31, 2007

IIT-JEE a cakewalk for Bihar boys

this news item appeared an www.ibnlive.com. although it si a reflection of victory of the underprivilaged against all odds and a story of triumph of a david over golaith, scaling of mt everest et all, there is another issue here which needs to be looked at from different perspective.
IIT-JEE is supposed to be a very tough examination, 2 lakh odd students give it only 2500 odd stand a chance to get a seat of their choice in the institute of their choice. It requires dedicated harwork, focus and perseverence on the part of the candidate taking the exam. So why is that nearly 10 per cent of all iit entrant are from bihar a supposedly backward and rural part of india??how the national capital region fare in this regard?? what about the rest of the nation??
Having myself given iit jee and not suceeding at it, my take is that how very hard we city boys/gals may work, the distractions we have to deal with make it impossible for us to keep up the focus for the duration of two years. we may work hard equally but the lack of hardships mean we end up failing when the litmus test comes. elite schools employ play way methods and claim to focus on holistic development of children. how can you expect a 16 year old to be as fit as micheal jordan, as agile as micheal johnson, an einstein for physicist, an arya bhatta in mathematics and a bigger computer geek than bill gates?? i mean at the end of the day do the holistic curriculums advocated by delhi schools and cbse actually end up making a child any of these?? in the world of cut thoat competition you need master of one trade not jack of all. In my opinion the education system in its present form is clearly missing the point. instead of classes of 50-100 odd students,however prtically difficult it may be, it is imperitive that individuals with individual talents be identified and trained accordingly.
This is how we will have a trained work force suited for particular task. This will even out the distribution of engineers, doctors, scientists, sportsmen etc from all parts of india