The Great Indian Shiksha Market
India is a country with a population of 1.2 billion people in which 60 percent of the current population is aged under 30 and roughly 30 million of them graduates from high school every year. What comes next after high school is the big question. As we all know discrimination hasn’t left education untouched. It’s only after passing the 10th standard examination or the secondary examination, you got to choose your streams from science, commerce and humanities/arts. The streams are selected or allotted on the basis of your grades in the board examination, interest barely matters. The actual race starts after the senior secondary, to get into the top notch universities of the country. The process of admission in the best engineering and medical colleges of the country is not that simple. The number of seats available in these colleges is almost negligible as compared to the number of applications they receive every year. This can be considered as one of the drawbacks of the Indian education system. A highly competitive exam awaits you, before you can enter your dream college. Preparation for these exams is yet another story; the business of illusive private coaching institutes has flourished all over the country in the past decade. They charge lakhs of rupees for the preparation of exams like IIT-JEE, AIEEE, medical entrance examination and many more. Not only engineering and medical colleges have a competitive door, getting admission in some of the top Delhi university colleges and other esteemed universities in India is close to landing on moon. The cut-offs of these college will appear absurd but that’s the reality, in recent times some top colleges of Delhi university have set their barrier as high as 100 percent.
These cut-offs and stressful admission processes has an adverse effect not only on the students but also on their parents. Applying in numerous colleges, dodging their barriers and completing the admission formalities are altogether a mammoth task. The month of July and August are considered as the admission months in India, newspaper filled with advertisements on colleges and articles on the same followed by slew of suicides cases. The darker consequence of the whole intricate process is an eye opener and need stringent measures to make it healthier and less stressful. The modus operandi of the admission process needs to be modified and modification should be a multi-dimensional approach towards the aspirant’s concern. Instead of increasing the cut-offs, number of seats in these colleges should be increased priority wise. India has a global image of producing scholars, long live this image but without jeopardising the morale of the young Indian minds.
