Article by Dr Vinay Jain – Founder Witty Group Institutions 

Various IIT coaching institutes taking over the schools in the name of integrated study programmes made me ponder over the ongoing madness in the mindsets of parents these days.

Where are we heading now?

Full page advertisements released in almost all leading national dailies by these so called coaching institutes bring in a lot of depression in the mindsets of parents nowadays. Early morning, looking at the newspaper advertisements by coaching classes, each parent is reminded that you and your child are in a rat race and if your child does not opt for our coaching for entrance examinations, he will be out of the race and will have no chances to succeed in life. A pseudo hype for these entrance examinations is being created over years by these coaching institutes via continuous repeated planned marketing campaigns and the end result today is even schools are falling prey to their dubious intentions. It is a sad state to see reputed schools tying up with coaching institutes in the name of offering quality education and forcing children to get into the coaching rat race. Some schools are doing this to pull more money from the parents in the name of providing specialised coaching. By allowing coaching classes to take over their teaching department, they have indirectly agreed to not being able to deliver education to students.

Schooling was always meant for holistic education and overall grooming of a child. India has had a great history of best schooling across the nation. However, I see a planned attempt being made to deprive children of this holistic education as coaching mafias now intend to grab students as young as in Grade 5 in the name of offering integrated study programs. The situation is alarming. All students are not meant to take up the same competitive examinations. Life is much beyond these competitive exams. It’s full of other opportunities which are far better than these courses. If you have a close study at the statistics, children opting for other courses, entrepreneurship courses fare much better in their lives than their counterparts who were forced to take these competitive examinations by their parents, joined these rat race coaching classes and ended up landing a mediocre job in some MNC or a Corporate.

The ability to think creatively, passion for pursuit of excellence somewhere gets lost when children merely look at education as a tool to be successful in entrance exams. The very purpose of education is defeated. Education needs to challenge the thought process; it needs to invigorate the thinking process in child. However, I wonder what must be the mindsets of students now a days who study merely to score marks to clear the exams. Parents and school teachers are equally responsible for this. All seem to be influenced with coaching classes. Surprisingly, the Government education authorities have done nothing to stop this malpractice. There is a need of urgent ban on schools and coaching classes nexus.

It is pertinent to place on record the education pattern adopted by the most advanced countries across the globe. None of the countries I visited laid such emphasis on entrance examinations. Education boards across the globe are focussing on providing children with ample opportunities to think and act creatively, develop rational thinking ability and the power to analyse and process information. It is a fact that almost all discoveries and inventions in the past 20 years have been accorded to the West. India, surprisingly has not given any substantial discovery or invention to the world in the past 20 years. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Twitter…. To name a few …. Are all from west. All these corporations have hired Indians who the world agrees are far better laborious workers; thanks to this rat race culture prevailing in India these days that has trained our children to slog day and night.

It’s time to think beyond entrance examinations. Life is full of excellent opportunities. Let’s allow children to groom and develop. The prevailing rat race culture will not give us another Swami Vivekananda or a Chanakya. Let’s not burden children with expectations. A capable child will succeed, will excel. We as parents and teachers need to hone the talents they have. Let’s not burden their young mindsets with academic pressures coupled with the pressure to succeed at competitive examinations. Lets teach them the value of excellence.