Here it is customary to say something about the Indian education system. But I am so stumped that I do not know where to start.
When raising the kids, I've always told them that I will be ready to pay any tuition for them as long as they get the admission on their own effort and merit. That I will not pay any capitation or management fees or whatever the donation is called. But when the actual admission time came, I kept thinking whether this is the right thing to do with my kid. That's what the education system here does to your morals.
The entrance exams conducted by the NTA are centred in some obscure private college outside the city. This is true for both JEE and CUET we applied. While the city has numerous government colleges, what is the need to let everyone go 20-30 kilometres to write the exam? You get the answer on the exam day. All the parents are herded into an auditorium and given a heavy dose of why that college is the best in the country.(Also why your kid will need more marks in JEE). Then they are taken to the 'Admission office' where you can pre-book seats at a cheaper price (of course, only cash is accepted). The price goes up after results are announced. This repeats in all the colleges across the city. The pressure for the parents is subtly raised till they end up 'booking' their seats. This is true of the Chennai parents who seem to think the worst of their kids and are ready to pay up and then talk about all the corruption in the government. Strange species of people!
We dont want to look at the gap between what we aspire and what our kid wants. What happens when your kid does not score enough marks to get that seat? As a parent, are you going to pay or let the kid get into a place which fits his/her marks? The parents always seem to answer these questions based on their aspirations (and a certain status it bestows by saying you paid 6 lakhs for that seat!). I can only watch in amusement all this drama. However, my wife was fully supporting me on this. Otherwise, it would've made life difficult (for me). And Vanathy understand what we are trying to do and never once complained. I am grateful for that as well.
However, it is necessary to point how the government helps this entire process. Till today (July 15), the results of the CUET exams are not announced. That is 2 months after the 12th results and one and half months after the exams are conducted. Even if it is announced today, the individual universities counselling will take another month. This is true for the TN engineering counselling as well. Rank list was published last week and counselling is supposed to start next week. Why so much delay? No valid reasons. These factors also push the parents to panic and start paying up.
For Vanathy, we started applying in all the colleges in the city and also some in Coimbatore as well. And she did get seats in all the colleges we applied (except a couple). She was shortlisted for the PSG tech's BSc program as well. However when a management fee was hinted at, we decided not to pursue.
As per her wish to be a hostelier, she got admission in a reputed institution and we were happy to let her go. After paying the fees and going through the orientation, we happily dropped her in the hostel last week.
Having two kids in college means the house feels empty for the first time since we moved in here 18 years back.
No comments:
Post a Comment