Dark Reality of Indian Education System

Hello, friends!

If you are a student at a school or a college, and I ask you about the career option you'll choose for yourself in the future, I can guarantee that 90% of you would answer Engineer, Doctor, MBA, or a government job. The career choices of 90% of you are hidden in these four options. Second, I can also guarantee that None of you wants to become 3 Idiots is among the all-time favourite blockbuster films of the country, people appreciated it a lot.

Repeatedly, this film gives out the message that you should chase your passion. "A great man has said, study not to be successful, but to improve yourself. Don't chase after success, pursue excellence. Success would follow you." But even after 12 years of the release of this film, if we look at the ground reality.

It's that people are still chasing after the handful of career options. What is the problem with its implementation? Is the Indian Education System to be blamed? Or our parents and teachers? Or is it the student's fault? In this video, come, let's do a deep analysis of this. And try to understand the solutions.

"While watching TV, you won't realise how many young people have become unemployable." "I will study and rock this world." "If you keep worrying about the future, how will you live in the present?" "These are India's young people who were supposed to fuel the country's economy.

I am Mohit Kumar. I work as a porter in Bhatinda Railway Station. I have a degree in B.Tech." "It's very difficult to get a government job." "When life tests you after school, it isn't subject-wise." When we talk about the Indian Education System, we talk about the teaching methods in schools and colleges, the examination systems, the syllabus, But, friends, in reality, the problem goes much deeper than the system.

There's a problem with the ecosystem. The entire environment. Let me use an example. In 2021, Indians spent an average of 5 hours every day looking at their phone's screen. So naturally, when people are watching something on their phones, they get influenced by it. If they are spending 5 hours in a day on it.

Mass media has a huge impact. Our news channels are filled with mostly 4 types of news. These 4 types of news are shown to the people mostly. Over the last 2 years, many Indians have won prestigious prizes for the country. Shaunak Sen's documentary won the Best Documentary Award at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

This was a historic moment for India, but instead of running this news, our media decided to focus on, Aishwarya Rai's and Deepika Padukone's outfits on Cannes' red carpet. This year, Geetanjali Shree, won the prestigious Booker Prize for her novel 'Ret Samadhi' translated into English (Tomb of Sand) by Daisy Rockwell. 

This was the first Indian language novel to reach the Booker Prize nominations. But did you hear this in the news? Apart from this, Indian mathematician Dr Neena Gupta, was the fourth Indian to win the Ramanujan Prize, but did you see her get interviewed on TV? In 2018, Danish Siddiqui and Adnan Abidi, were the first Indians to win the Pulitzers Prize for photography.

Then in 2020 and 2022, Indians won this award. But did you see any of them get interviewed on a TV Channel? Of course, had these achievements been highlighted on the front page of a newspaper, had these winners been interviewed and talked about on TV Channels, of course, it would have inspired more people.

Young people would have felt passionate to choose as career options. But no, the news channels choose to run the headlines about the videos that are going viral. "Have you ever seen a crow doing a ramp walk? If not, pay attention to this video." Tell me, does this benefit society in any way? We see the same thing in the films.

Films like 3 Idiots are the exceptions. Normally, you'll notice that the professions of the heroes of the films are limited to, an army officer, a policeman, sometimes, it's a gangster, there will be scenes of gunfights and fistfights, and in some films, they're businessmen or sportsmen, but they don't go into the details of the business.

You won't see professions such as ornithologist, beekeeper, or a sitar player in the films. And we lose out on another way the youth could've been motivated. If you see social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram, you get to see what you're already interested in. The algorithms are designed in a way that if you interact with something, you are shown similar content or related content repeatedly.

Unconventional careers or jobs will not be recommended to you on these platforms. You will have to search for these. If you take the mass media influence into account, the career choice that you think you're making independently, perhaps that's not your career choice. Rather, it is the mass media conditioning, that has been imposed on you.

And your lack of exposure. Basically, you aren't aware of the options available to you. The second factor here is the parents. Often, parents make this problem worse. As far as we can remember, society has been telling us, even on WhatsApp forwards, that parents are always right. You would have seen the emotional WhatsApp forwards, how a person realised that their father was right all along.            

"You realise it after you go through it." "Good. Well done, child." In this society, if you question your parents or disagree with them on anything, you are immediately labelled as a disobedient, unruly child. But think about it, if every child's parents were smart and intelligent, the world would have been filled with smart and intelligent people.

It can't possibly be that every child's, every student's parents are wise. This is why many parents see themselves as a figure of authority. Their child needs to obey them. And treat everything they say as the truth. These parents often punish their children, physically and emotionally. If the child disobeys them for even the littlest of things, they are punished.

These parents believe that strict parenting is needed to raise good, disciplined, and well-mannered children. Who would become responsible and confident adults. But this isn't true. Several research papers have proven that authoritative parenting erodes the confidence and self-esteem of a child, and causes a negative effect on their decision-making ability.

This isn't my opinion, rather, it has been proven by research from all around the world. So when such parents say that their child will be an engineer, Or that they've told their child to clear the UPSC exam anyhow. Or that they have already chosen a profession for their child, when the under confident child listens to these statements, with the low self-esteem, the child cannot question the parents.

This is why choosing an unconventional career isn't even an option because the parents do not want an unconventional career. These parents think that since the world was a certain way when they were young, they know what the right career option would be what the stable career choice would be. However, they forget to keep themselves updated with time.

As a result, even after 30 years of the liberalisation of the Indian economy, government jobs are the most demanded. Over the last 8 years, 220 million applications for government jobs were made in our country. While only 722,000 jobs were actually available. The ratio is 1 in 300. For every 300 people applying only 1 would get a job.

Here, I'm talking about the central government jobs only. 220 million applications for them. Here, you are running in a race with 300 people at the starting line imagine that. 300 people would be running, but only the first person would get a job. Everyone that comes second, or third, they get nothing.

All but 1 lose the race. Why do you want to run in this race? I know that had I run in such a race, I wouldn't have come first, I wouldn't have gotten a job. That's why I decided, to run in a race where there were only 3 or 4 people at the starting line. Obviously, convincing the parents is a big challenge. If you tell your father that you want to be a palaeontologist, he'll probably ask you what it is. If you say that you want to be a standup comedian, they'd say it's not even a job.

If you want to be an environmentalist, they say it has no scope. A graphic designer, there's no stability. Interior designer, they'd tell you to find a conventional job first, and then pursue it as a hobby. If you want to be a wedding planner, they'd say that this business won't take off in our society.

Here, parents need to broaden their minds. If parents do not have the knowledge and exposure to a career option, they should broaden their knowledge. Instead, they tell the child that they'll have to do as the parents direct them to. In such a case, you can reply by saying that you will be the one to work, so the work should be according to your preferences.

That the parents shouldn't be the ones to decide. This does sound like a logical argument. But such arguments are seen as disrespectful in our society. A child that grew up under strict parenting and authority figures, perhaps, they will never have the courage of saying this. Even if their friends tell them to do what they love. 

Even if it's Steve Jobs telling them to do what they love. Or the characters from 3 Idiots, they will answer, "My parents won't let me." If someone showed the courage to talk to their parents and to convince them, The parents would reply, "Do whatever you wish, don't come back crying to us.

What would a child feel after hearing this? A lot of doubt and fear. They are walking a new path, and the parents abandon them, they are left to tread alone, without the parents as a support system. This increases indecisiveness. One needs to think, why are they scared in such situations? Several cognitive biases are at play here.

First, conformity bias. The mind of an average person wants to be in conformity with the actions of others. This is the peer pressure. There's an evolutionary reason to this, but as a result, we basically want to do what others around us say and do. Think about it, Do you want to study at Indian Statistical Institute, one of the top premier institutes in India? The average package there is around ₹2 million per annum.

You'd get a good job. But no, you want to go to an IIT. Because everyone else wants to. We want to do what others are doing. There's a boom in such and such careers, Or that a career is quite 'in' right now, something's always trending, or is a hot career. A family friend gets admission into IIT coaching classes, you want to too.

A cousin did a dental course, you want to do it too. Such conformity had an evolutionary advantage. Thousands of years ago, When humans lived in jingles in tribes, and you'd see the people in your tribe doing something, such as building a stone boundary outside their houses, to protect themselves from wild animals, if would have benefitted you to copy them, and build a stone boundary outside your home. 

But today, this copying one another is not as beneficial. Another bias at play is the ambiguity effect. If you are given 2 options to choose from, In one option, you know the probability of the outcomes, and in the other, you do not. For example, the first option is to get a government job. There you know the probability of success is 1 out of 300.

And the second option is to be a graphic designer, where you do not know the probability of success, research has shown that humans prefer the option where they know the probabilities. Our mind prefers not to run estimates and guesses. To avoid choosing an ambiguous choice. We choose an option that we're more familiar with.

That we have heard of more. That's discussed more, and that whose success rate is known. This is why you can find an engineering college a stone's throw away. From Sonipat, to Meerut, to Jodhpur. These colleges do not promise placements, their salary packages are quite low, but even so, people prefer them because it's a familiar option.

Another problem with these low-quality engineering colleges is that proper skills aren't taught to engineers and graduates. Without skills, how will they get proper jobs? The same can be said about the exams for government jobs.

According to a 2019 report, 2.5 million candidates applied for 10,000 SSC MTS jobs. These jobs were for the Multi Tasking Staffs. The chance of getting a job was 0.005. And if they did get the job, the salary would be ₹20,000 per month. if you compare this with the salary of a video editor or a graphic designer, who get ₹70k-₹80k in a month easily for good work.

Even then, people prefer the government jobs over being a graphic designer, because of the Ambiguity Effect. In this entire system, starting with the mass media's conditioning, parents' influence, and our cognitive biases, the only place we can go to look for any hope is the only avenue remaining, our schools and colleges.

But do our schools and colleges help us deal with this situation? In most of the states in our country, the government schools are in terrible condition. They don't even have basic amenities. "In Mirzapur, UP children were given salt and roti as their mid-day meal." A few months ago, the Haryana government ordered the closure of 300 schools, abolished 20,000 teacher posts, and 38,000 teacher posts are vacant.

The Assam government decided recently that 34 government schools would be shut down because all of the students in those schools failed Class X board exams. It shows that instead of improving the schools, governments are closing them down. But anyway, you can go to a private school, if you think government schools are so bad.

How do private schools fare? Friends, in most places, you still see the 'Respecting the Authority' mindset in schools. There, teachers are seen as figure of authority. At home, parents are the figures of authority, and at school, teachers. Whatever a teacher says, you have to believe it to be the truth. 

Children have to stand in a straight line, wear the same uniform, make no noise, boys should have short hair, girls with long hair need to have it tied. You should strive to impress the teachers. You have to be the class monitor. You can be the teacher's pet to be the class monitor. So that you can teach proper behaviour to your classmates.

And if you don't conform to all these, you will be punished. There's an interesting dialogue in the film The Karate Kid. They say that there are no bad students. Only bad teachers. "No such thing 'bad' student. Only bad teacher." But do most teachers realise this? "Teacher enter, no notice? Full insult.

You mother father's manners this?" Students are punished for not doing their homework, for making noise for coming late to school, for not wearing school belt even. "I need a monthlong break from school." At places, physical punishments are also seen. Even though it is illegal in our country but it continues in many places.

This has been revealed in several news reports and surveys. If not physical violence, teachers take to mentally humiliate the students. Students are made fun of in front of the entire class. "Once, I wore a cap to school. My teacher humiliated me so much that I hate caps with a passion now." "This is a naughty child, he doesn't use his brain, what will he do when he grows up? We're fed up of the child.

At home, strict parenting damages the child's self-esteem, and at school, teachers do their best to crush all remaining pieces of it. A student growing up in this environment looks at others to follow the commands. They cannot make a decision for themselves, and they are left with self-doubt if they even try to.

But if we assume that the child was blessed with supportive parents and teachers, the next problem here is the curriculum at school. The biggest problem with the school curriculum is that various career options aren't explained well. Children aren't given that exposure. For example, in how many school textbooks or assignments have you come across and many such careers? Take a career as a geologist.

At school, we have the subject Geography. In it, there are chapters that teach geology. On the composition of the Earth, the various features such as volcanoes, we are taught these. But have you ever thought that you could become a geologist? Or a palaeontologist? Or an archaeologist? In math books, you come across chapters on data, graphs, histograms, pie charts, standard deviation, median, etc.

But have you ever thought that you can become a statistician? We are also thought Biology as a subject in school. But have you ever thought that you can grow up to be a Perhaps not. Because teacher forget to relate the syllabus with the real world. Building a connection between the school texts and careers is missing. 

Perhaps schools do not inspire creativity. A famous dialogue from the film "A Beautiful Mind" says "Classes will dull your mind. Destroy the potential for any creativity." Employment doesn't refer to jobs only. It includes entrepreneurship as well. But how much do schools teach you about entrepreneurship? You will find only a few examples if any.

Recently, entrepreneurship mindset was included as a subject in schools in Delhi. But it is generally not so in the rest of the country. Thankfully, these issues are discussed all across the world now. This isn't an India-specific problem. There's a famous TED Talk by Ken Robinson, "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" "Now, I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative, but what we do know is if you're not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original.

If you're not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. We run our companies, by the way, we stigmatise mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make.

And the result is, we are educating people out of their creative capacities. Picasso once said this, he said that all children are born artists."

It shows that so many people can relate to this. Films have also been made on this, in our country. It shows how education can be made better.

Learning is made into an interactive, enjoyable experience. So yes, there are some places where we see these ideas being discussed, but these ideas have not become mainstream yet. Now let's talk about the solutions. I know that not everything is in your control. But you can influence that which is in your control.

Such as mass media. Don't chase after the most viral video on YouTube. Try to look for the various career options yourself. See the videos by National Geographic on palaeontologists, how they discover the dinosaurs, the videos of archaeologists excavating the Rakhigarhi excavation site. When you watch films and series on Netflix, instead of watching the popular content that are discussed everywhere watch something different.

You will find brilliant documentaries, on ecology, anatomy, archaeology, history, space investigative journalism, coding, psychology, religion, and such topics. You will need to take some initiative yourself, because as I told you, algorithms will show you that you are most likely to interact with. I try my best to include as much knowledge and information as I can in the blog that I make for you on Blog.

Parents will have to change a bit. Parents have to understand that by behaving strictly with children they leave a negative impact on the growth of their children. They will have to take initiative and gain exposure to various career options, so that they have the knowledge to better guide their children. 

The children aren't the only ones responsible for this. Parents should try to do this. So that their mindset can be updated with time. The third role here is of the teachers and schools. They will need to understand this and the schools have to try to come up with ways to stimulate creativity. Ways in which career counselling can be a part of schooling.

Private and government schools need to take some initiative even if the curriculum doesn't change they can appoint a career counsellor at school. It is commendable that some schools are doing this already. If they don't want to do this, or maybe they can't they can have a 3-day Career Counselling Workshop, for the students in Class 10th.

When a guest speaker can come in, and tell the students about the various career options. It is very important to bring about a change. This isn't just about the child's future, not just about their career and salary, this is about the development of our country too. In most of the developed countries, you'll see all kinds of profession and career are given equal importance.

When you can see the citizens of a country working in all kinds of professions only then can there be a holistic development of the country. Friends, this video, is very special to me. Because this is a topic, that I've been thinking about for years. I understood this problem and asked myself, how can I deal with this problem? And then I came up with the idea of creating a series in which various unconventional careers can be discussed.

The actual scope of these jobs. How can you pursue these careers? Things that you'll need to study for them, things that you'll need to do, and the salaries you can expect. These things are not discussed. But those who are doing these unconventional jobs, know the most about them. So I thought about creating a series, talking to such people and learning from them, to give you the knowledge of it.

I have been working on this series for a long time.

And you liked the blog . Share this blog with as many people as you can so that your parents, friends, and everyone else, can learn about these and we can change the obsolete system.

Let's meet in the next blog.

Thank you very much