The report about cram schools in India (Sept. 12) raises serious questions about an educational system, which is now defunct worldwide. The rote memory system has somehow ridiculously continued to hold the roost since formal education became entrenched in Indian society. While the rest of the world is now focusing on the experience of learning and enhancing the joy of gaining knowledge, information, through technology which would lead to learner autonomy or learners taking control of their own learning, the Indian educational system forces students to chase after the carrot through learning by rote. The carrot at the end of the stick is of course, grades, which are sometimes so inhumanely competitive that students have known to commit suicide on a regular basis. Seriously, is this what we are sending our kids to school for? Schools and top universities promise a whole-rounded curriculum but when students finally get there, they are in for a shock. Teachers and professors, for the most part, are heavily dependent on the memory of students and refuse to acknowledge any originality because it would mean more work on their part. Isn’t it enough that they are in their respective classrooms every morning teaching stuff they are sure to get back in a similar format?
Perhaps there is a stronger and more poignant reason for rote memory learning in our society. As the stakes of getting plush jobs have gotten higher, more and more students from poorer economic backgrounds have joined the rat-race to get that elusive Bollywood lifestyle which can only come from a high-paying job. Studies have repeatedly shown that students from lower income classes do not have the resources to compete with their more savvy counterparts in the big cities. One of the biggest hurdles is the English language itself. While the latter speak fluently and sometimes with a clipped accent reminiscent of foreign climes, the poor boy from a small village in Bihar struggles through the pronunciation immediately revealing his inferiority. But that is not his priority anyway. It is to crack the entrance tests to those halls of prestige and so the aim is only to focus on the questions and their answers. It is not his need to question why he needs to answer in a certain way. The fact that he can answer at all is what matters.
Bansal classes, Ashutosh coaching center, etc. continue to flourish in a climate where students no longer learn the art of learning but rote learn their way into jobs. Of course, it is an undesirable culture but these are desperate people and desperation knows no limits. Can this unhealthy trend in academics be turned around? It seems difficult especially when one sees that neighboring countries like China, Pakistan and further off, Japan rely on rote learning as well. While one cannot completely write off the advantages of rote learning, teacher communities in these countries must also realize that by depending on this kind of learning alone, they are creating a generation of handicaps: students who will have high academic degrees but not be worth their salt. (Ozma Siddiqui, Jeddah)
Removing dead to make a living
The report "Removing the dead to make a living on Mumbai's rail tracks" (Sept. 15) highlighted two major issues that no civil society can bear or turn blind eye to even for a moment.
Firstly, it was horrible to learn that out of 15,000 deaths in the country on railway tracks every year, over 6,000 people die in and around Mumbai alone. There is no way a country or a city could allow thousands of people to die on the tracks due to poor safety measures. Yes, the traffic movement has increased by leaps and bounds without relative or rather any significant improvement in the infrastructure to cater to this demand, but, that is not an excuse and the authorities cannot go scot-free. I would rather let the whole city come to a grinding halt than have the hustle bustle, which would mean putting thousands of human lives at risk. For God’s sake, let us stop treating human beings as cattle or fodder. The existing archaic and totally unsafe trains which cannot prevent people from hanging out of the doors are replaced with closed door metro trains and the entire tracks are fenced to avoid any penetration. When there is so much talk of privatization and allowing foreign direct investment in different sectors, which were hitherto closed, why not open up the railways and the mass transportation business for private operators, at least to cater to the needs of the metropolis.
Secondly, it is indeed pathetic to see the urchins or destitute individuals being made responsible to carry the injured or dead from the tracks. Have the authorities become so cold-blooded to let the seriously injured die by not providing immediate medical aid? The contempt toward the dead bodies is very much reprehensible.
Although, these large number of people die at different times and places, yet, the figure should cause a similar alarm and pain as one accident causing hundreds of deaths at one time. (Safi H. Jannaty, Dammam)
Letters — Cram schools in India
