I had always wanted to move to government school to free myself off the stressful school life. It finally happened during my higher secondary education, when I moved from a private CBSE school to a self-financed state government school (which offered quality education in the locality in English medium).
All the excitement I had towards my new free school got broken within a week after I joined the school. I realised that the biggest mistake I had ever done till then was choosing a government school.
Though everything seemed to be alright with the school from outside, the environment inside the school was so demotivating me. The teachers had never seen a guy who would question them when he/she had got a doubt. Whenever I rose my voice, I was beaten down.
The school offered too much freedom, the freedoms such as being dishonest, coming late to class, skipping as many days or classes as we wish, not listening to class etc. The students who had wanted to behave like the ordinary irresponsible kids used the available freedom to their best and the toppers never rose their head, never interrupted the classes, neither initiated nor involved in any thought provoking discussions.
I was there in between both groups, left alone, finding it hard to make any trusted friend and frustrated with the limitations in the freedom. Whenever I rose my voice, I was set down rudely.
The time became even worse during the time of exams. Since I had a bad handwriting, teachers we hardly read what I had written in the paper. I had to beg almost every teacher for a pass mark. There was a huge humiliation by both teachers and students, because I was not like them.
To add more to the stress, I chose to be a rebel and write the answers in my own way. Frankly, I had poor language skills those days. So, I was experimenting my writing skills during exams and the result was still the same.
At a point of time, I stopped caring about the marks. So, did my parents thankfully. I realised that I was running a wrong race. The syllabus, exam pattern, teachers and the education system seemed to be wrong to me. I wanted to prove everyone that I was better than them by ending up in a place, which they could not even dream about.
I started looking for the opportunities and found out that there was a coaching centre in a nearby city (almost 35 km away), which offered training for AIEEE exam. I approached them and I enquired them about JEE training. Their reply was that I was 4 years late, because only 8th Std students were admitted to JEE training. Finally after a discussion, they offered me an one year AIEEE training, which I accepted and enrolled myself at the centre. I could do that only because I had money (my father had money to be exact).
Almost 40 tedious weekends, which started with 2.5 hours morning journey, 6 hours of classroom training, lunch in between, 2.5 hours of return journey, an exhausted dinner and sleep, passed by. Even then i didn’t realise that I was losing focus in both at the school and at the coaching centre.
Finally the board exams arrived. I was too casual and expected a 75% overall, a little above the par that was required as prerequisite for most of the competitive exams. Unfortunately, I couldn't score well in AIEEE too though I could clear the entrances of a few private universities. I finally chose of the private universities and had borrowed a huge sum as educational loan.
Long story in short, it's not easy for a rural boy studying in a government school to score well in competitive exams. The schools are neither of good quality nor of great support. Private coaching centres cost a lot and located only in cities. More than everything, the rural students are not aware of the opportunities available to them. It's even worse, if a student comes from the native medium.
When that is the case in most part of India, the government has made NEET compulsory for students to study MBBS. The results are clearly visible from the recent protests in Tamil Nadu. The point here is that the competition is not even between rural and urban students, and rich and poor students.
Despite these drawbacks, competitive exams such as NEET are the only possible ways for improving our rural education system. The best example is how I was not admitted for JEE training.
During the early years, these coaching centres would have trained only the 12th Std students. As years passed, the competition would have increased that they might have felt the students should have been trained earlier and gradually moved to the lower classes. Today there are not many institutes that take students above class 6 for JEE training. It shows that when there's a need at class 12, the need changed the lower classes and finally they have achieved a standard system from class 6.
The same would happen if students have to face a higher standard competitive exam at class 12. Gradually the education system would be forced to push their standard up even at the lower classes. Obviously it needs a lot of effort from everyone in the state to reform the system.
There's also a group of people who would like to do it the other way, i.e., to improve the standard of lower classes first and gradually increase it to higher classes, and then implement a better standard of exams.
Though that seems to be a sensible way, it would not work. The main reason is that in India no plans work without an immediate need. We all have the habit of waiting till the end and doing it ASAP at the last moment. The other reason is that the government changes every 5 year. So, even if a government modifies a syllabus for lower class (say class 6) and try to move up, when the student comes to a higher class (class 11), the government would change and nobody can expect the new government to continue the previous government’s plans.
