Life is a race where we compete against infinite number of unknown participants, all of them trying to leap across their respective hurdles.”
Here are Vernika Tanwani’s views on how life is transforming into a race.
From a very young age, our children are told that they need to make it big if they wish to survive in this world. And making it big essentially means earning, if not a lot, then at least more than what their parents do. Every generation survives a constant pressure of being more successful than their predecessors. We start with teaching kids to excel in every field. We dearly accept average performance in ALL the fields rather than extraordinary in one, if others are being compromised. Little do we understand that we are actually killing the real skills and talents that would really, in its true sense, help the kids in making it big.
This race starts with procuring a seat in a good school and never quite ends. The schools witness parents insanely clearing interviews for their kids, running around like maniacs, finding the best schools. Then, before the kids know it, they are laden with loads of books on their backs and immense pressure on their minds; they become participants in this run for excellence.
Somehow, if the tiny souls manage to get through this exhausting process, they find themselves standing in a queue amid numerous others like them, waiting for their chance to crack the bolt of college admissions.
It is quite a task securing admission in India. Really! In the age of 100% cut offs and the overpowering reservation system-which thrashes away a million dreams in one go, and those which survive are made to undergo those exhausting procedures and delayed schedules, but is it really where all the struggle ends?
Procuring admission in one of the well reputed colleges might be no less than a real battle but then that’s just not where it ends. That is just not where victory is attained. It is actually where the real bloodshed starts! It is a constant war to reaching the top. Leading a successful life can never be guaranteed with just a seat in a fine institution. Life starts after you exit the gates of your college. That’s when you get the real taste of the broth you’ve been preparing for all the years. In this struggle, we do prepare children to run, in this race, while they actually have no idea where they are heading to. Isn’t something terrible wrong with our education system?
We will definitely be successful in preparing competent people but what about skills? How are we ever going to prepare skilled workforce that actually enjoys working? True, we have Indians working in every top ranked company across the globe. True, there is not any field that we have not made our mark in. True, we are moving towards development, but is the way we are doing it correct? These are the ones who attained success in what they did. But we just cannot measure our progress only on the basis of the positive aspects, completely ignoring the negatives.
What about the millions who are not able to secure a place for themselves in this never-ending battle? Those who find themselves in an inescapable situation where they are surrounded by pressure elements from all the directions. This pressure ranging from peer pressure to parental and societal pressure could prove to be immensely destructive for the psyche of the child. It could force the child into taking adverse steps, could even lead to them committing suicide. India has the highest cases of student suicides in the world. Most of these are from students who fail to acquire a seat in a reputed college.
Students must be made to understand the simple fact that no college degree can guarantee success in life. There are people from the stereotyped ‘not so reputed’ colleges, dancing in the face of life and then there are people graduating from the best colleges in the country, struggling to make ends meet. It’s all about how one chooses to lead life. You might be the one who can easily follow the bandwagon but you can choose to be the one who makes your own music as you go along. Life is what you make it and there’s absolutely no college degree in the world that can guarantee your success in life.
This exhausting education system that imposes so much stress needs to be reformed. There is a strong need to inculcate skill development in the curriculum and let go of the age old westernized education system that we have been so blindly following. We need to understand that every child is special and that everyone cannot excel in every field. And that is how we will be able to correct what we have been doing wrong for all these years.
