Students in the doldrums

Schools have become the largest and the most profitable business venture in our country. Although the business is bigger in the metros and cities, this is evolving as an issue of concern for smallu00a0 towns too.

Sky rocketing fees, unproductive classes, donations, unqualified teachers and the list of substandard service in the education sector can go on. The other day my cousin (who stays in a small city in Orissa) informed me that her history teacher has threatened to fail her in the final exams if she doesn't take tuitions from her. Just imagine the plight of such students!

A month back my friend told me that her sister who is studying in standard IX decided to change her school. I was curious to know why she wasu00a0 she taking such a decision a year before her board exams.

Her reply surprised me. Their teachers,u00a0 instead of teaching them, had just been giving them a question bank to prepare for the exams. The poor girl complained to her parents that she had not understood a single chapter from any of her subjects for the past one year. And this is in spite their school charging them a hefty sum as tuition fee every year.

This was the story of a small city. Coming back to metros and big cities, the issue is slightly different. Sending a child to any of the top schools requires lakhs of rupees. A school near Camp charges Rs 1.20 lakh per annum, equal to the amount which I paid for my post graduation course in Pune!

Another national school in the city had made sneakers of a particular brand compulsory for students. Now, how does it matter if a child wears Nike or Bata shoes! How will his knowledge be affected by wearing a certain brand of shoe!

I keep hearing and watching parents fight against the fee hike in schools, but the latter almost always gives a deaf ear to their pleas.

It really bothers me to see something like this and Kapil Sibal's speech at a city institute a few months back, comes to my mind. He had said that it's a sin if we are not providing proper education to our
children.

It's quite a concern that a large percentage of kids in our country are not attending schools or are drop-outs. I shudder to think what the future of our country is going to be like if the present situation for students is so grim.