Indian University for an average Student

There is a different perspective of every individual when it comes to education in India. While government officials are busy flaunting the relentless effort they put in making the education system work and function properly, there is another world of innocent minds still wandering to find some place to satiate their hunger for knowledge. Apart from these two worlds there is another flock of lucky youth that actually got a chance to study in the Indian universities (not that it’s any kind of prestige!). In this group there is another division, a big one when seen from top to down, one that consists of the “creamy-layer” of the students: the IITs and IIMs (include the IISc, if you must) and another of regular kids that attended the same school back then, and saw the same dreams as the “creamy-layer” of this country. So is it fare to make them feel that they aren’t worth of achieving the goals they set for themselves?
Before going any further, let me be very clear that I have a lot of respect for the students who worked their ass off to get into the IITs and IIMs, and they truly deserve the Brand value of it. Nonetheless, I have new found love for the average student who was not able make the cut and is now caught in a vacuum for at least an era of his education. Both the clan started with the same ABCD..., 1234... , and the nursery rhymes but now there is a gap, a gap so huge that the society is not able to recognize the clan that was left behind. I agree it’s a rat race and every one has to be at their best at all times, but what about the rats who did not give up and were still running even after being left behind? Shouldn’t they at least get a chance to reach the finish line?
Sadly, there is not a single university in India which is counted in the top 100 universities of the world, and the irony is that a large portion of the five year plan is allotted to the education system itself. And in this already struggling education system, there is none that come even close to the IITwalas and IIMwalas.
Let’s talk about the average student and his actual encounter with the university.
After losing the initial battle to get through the 100s of screening tests and being declared ‘not-eligible’ by several top-notch university, he somehow gathers his pieces of broken confidence and gets into a normal college with the hope of making it better this time. Little did he knew that even though the fees charged and the funding that college gets is nothing less than what is charged by a top notch college under any world renowned university, the story is very different in here. He struggles to find a connection between what he wanted his college life to be and what his college life has actually become. He undergoes the tests only to find that it is never checked and thus never counts. Internal assessment they say? What are they assessing, how good the student is in being the name a teacher can remember?  And the practical examination: an examination where all means of cheating are allowed from chits to smartphones. Take a picture to clear the scenario! There is hardly any genuine practice that is given to the student. Vivas are an interaction between the dumbfounded student and a person who can never be called a teacher. The home assignment becomes an art of copying the stuff in several different ways. The external examination is a piece of cake with the previous year question papers and beating around the bush always comes in handy if the actual answer is missing.

Frankly, even I have enjoyed these perks of being in a normal college. But you know what? I miss the person I used to be back in school days, when everything had a purpose and being competitive kept me going! Speaking about competing, the university has successfully installed a system where it gives you the right to equality. You worked for the presentation you get 80, you have not worked for the presentation, you get 82! Sadly its cyanide for the student community. If you don’t get the rewards for your work, what is the point in working for it? And why to work for better, if you comfortably scored 82 while watching porn all night!
The human, like any other animal, is not designed to work harder than required! And if you provide the lazy ass couch to crash on, why the hell people will bother to run?

Now when there is no scope of improvement left in an individual and the urge to dominate still prevails, there comes the inevitable birth of politics! The student has left with no option but to follow the simple rule: “if you cannot run ahead of a person, pull the person back instead!”, and that my friend, is the birth of the black-hole. Walk past one, and get sucked into it!

Teachers in such university come in with the mentality “IIT nikal nahi paye, dimaag kya khaak hoga inke paas!” or “hum bhi inhi ki tarah the! Humein pataa hai pardhna likhna toh hai nahi inko!” etc etc. I don’t know where I heard this but it actually made sense to me “there is no bad student only a bad teacher! “. A lot of teacher (and I mean a lot) has little or no knowledge of their respective subject (understandable, since “they were like us” in dearth of good teacher.), the small no. of teacher who actually has some knowledge are busy flaunting their endurance and pursuit of knowledge instead of actually teaching the stuff! (Dear sir! We are not interested in feeling guilty about having internet and cellphones which was not part of your upbringing. If we follow your advice, then mankind should still be chiseling scripts and dancing naked around fire!). Teacher are supposed to be a whole package, a motivator, a guide and a person to look up to when it comes to acquiring knowledge. An average student seldom meets a teacher whom he can make a standard for measuring the amount of knowledge he need to achieve.

The projects: an application of the knowledge a student has acquired! Rs.3000 per piece. I remember a teacher advising my senior “beta tumse toh hoga nahi, ek kaam karo purani dilli ya district center se kharid lao and report ratt lo! “, and that’s what puts the period at the urges and curiosity declaring the average student as an ineligible candidate who has become so dependent in his last span of education that he cannot display what he learnt.

When teacher, HOD and other respectable post holding people says that there is no quality of student in there campus and so they are helpless in producing result, I feel insulted and not only me about 70% of the average student feel insulted and I say 70% because the 30% of this crowd had already lost their will to chase their dreams!
An average student, a clan who dared to dream but was brought down by the Indian Universities! A clan that sow seeds of brighter future in barren fields of education system. With every passing year, a million of students are losing their curiosity and thirst for learning (we talk about placements instead!), whom to blame?
we are the youth, we tend to do things we are not supposed to. Society and the system is designed to guide us and if we are failing as a whole and not an individual then its fault of the system!

Given the right amount of funding and fees, I presume there is no monetary pressure on the institution. 

1. Take a break for all the present student to complete their degree and start afresh, seniors are a huge influence on the freshmen batch and they tend to adapt a similar attitude.
2. Design the examination system like you want the student to actually learn, it should not be difficult and if it is copy paste it from a reputed school ( it will work! ). Design the books for your university, average student are not dedicated enough to go through three or four hefty book and scribble notes (a fixed course and flexible examination is better than a wide course and previous year question papers!). 
3. Students will learn, only if they trust their teachers! It’s a fact that student will have no interest in class taken by a person who he thinks (rightly or not) is not knowledgeable enough of taking it.
4. There will be disturbing elements in every class and they should be warned against their activities and extra class should be given to them. The student should live close to their college, a lot of time is spent on travelling by the student these days and so college should come with a p.g. system or a college hostel.
5. Labs are meant to be put in use. Flaunting several sophisticated lab is not enough. Proper care should be taken of smooth functioning of the labs and make sure that student can acquire more than the prescribed practical knowledge. It’s the only thing that keeps us hooked to learning!
6. Assignments and assessments should be taken seriously! When marking is taken seriously, student will fall in line! This does not mean punishing a weak student again and again. There should be special sessions for these folks (they might have missed a little something that is acting as a missing link!) 
7. Students should host all kinds of fests and competitions and even society runs. There should be joint community of student and teachers and a system should be put in line to make sure the monetary transaction are on the basis of no profit and no loss.
8. Make the student feel that they need to work to deserve the perks. Start houses and assign club memberships! Design competitions to get into the clubs/houses and actually let them have the incentives of it! (They are worth it!)
9. Keep a running project in every semester or introduce one in switch-semester breaks (let it be related to the domain of knowledge they are learning and a little bit intersecting with the one coming next!). Application makes it easy to understand and value the knowledge.
10. Every individual has his limitation when he enters the college. Work with them to sort it out. Lessen the effect if it cannot be eradicated!

There is a dire need of revolutionary change in education system if the average student should survive. It’s the largest group of future workforce! As soon as the quality of the education escalates, the society will experience a change and a positive one indeed. Most of the point I made may be already a point of the existing education system. If it is, then there is an urgent need to check there implementation. Corruption has no place in the ground level. The future is building right in these campus, if you expose us to dark, we will adapt to it! 

The shiny IITs and IIMs cannot transform the bigger picture alone, they certainly need their high school buddies with the same dream and the same force to achieve it. Make us fall in love with education again!