What will you do if you secure 92% marks in Class XII?
Well…. if I was the one securing this mark, I would have died out of disbelief. ‘Cos you will need to add the percentage of one more student to my percentage to make it 92%.
In a very unfortunate incident, Kritika Khanna, a resident of Gurgaon hanged herself to death ‘cos 92% was not enough to get her admission into the so-called “Best Colleges” such as SRCC. The News sounds boring… right… ‘cos we are used to such news now, at least in Delhi, Mumbai and other Metros, where the only way to secure admission in Best Colleges is Grades.
If only, schoolteachers, friends or parents had told Kritika that Grades or best college are not everything. They can guarantee only one thing “snob value”. They cannot guarantee you street smartness, a good future or a good life.
How can one commit suicide? It takes a lot of courage to do that… or may be some peer pressure…. or society pressure…. as happened in the instant case.
The best way to run a college is the way Colleges in Golaghat (or any small town for that matter) are run. You go there on the date of the admission with roughly Rs. 400 ($10) and your original 10th pass certificate. That’s it. The admission clerk will ask if you would like to opt for Science, Commerce or Arts. If by God’s grace you secured Ist division (i.e. > 60%), the clerk knows the answer upfront, you would opt for Science, else, you would opt for Arts. There are negligible few only who secure first division. Being A Grades or studious is not considered a cool or in thing, at least in Golaghat. In case the number of seats for Science or Arts in the particular college is full, then only you would choose Commerce. So… this is how admissions take place. What happens as a result is that you do not worry about Grades in schools, until and unless you want to go and do your XIth from a school in one of the metros.
Who is to blame? Well.. the most common answer is “The System”. So I wont delve into it. What I want to highlight is the way the society judge kids. Go to any social gathering…. the first question thrown at a kid is “beta… which standard are you in?” “what was your % in 10th board and so on. What happens as a result? Those who do not secure good marks normally shy away from being social (let’s call them Category B kids). Thus the former category of kids starts getting everything easy in life (till they study) including attention (let’s call them Category A kids). Most of their time goes in notebooks, tuitions, rote learning few schoolbooks. They see life only through these books and rote learning. However, rote learning has one big advantage…. if the person setting the exam question is not smart (99 out of 100 are not), one can secure 100% marks simply by good memorization techniques, even though he or she may not have understood the subject at all. And, this is what happens in every schools in India (atleast).
The Bs has to struggle to get the same attention. As a result what happens is that Bs become stronger than the A’s mentally. As they are exposed to things other than books. They don’t learn much in Classroom; they learn everything the hard way, by navigating their way through real life challenges. No wonder, those who are used to getting everything easy in life (thanks to Grades), struggles the most when faced with reality.
The good news is that Street smartness is the only trait that can make you successful in life. You may choose to define success the way you want (Name, fame, money, well-balanced life, etc. etc.). Unfortunately Grades does not guarantee you that.
It’s high time that our schools focus on active learning and deep critical thinking rather than rote learning and high time for our society to stop asking that stupid question on Grades and School.
I would only like to give one gyan to the students… You might have one big reason for committing suicide… however, there are thousand reasons why you should not.
In case the one reading this happens to be A's, please don’t mind… I can only say that there are exceptions everywhere.
