Educational Guillotines: Are they killing someone’s aspirations?

I have been trying to ignore this topic for long and for better of my sanity and for those few unfortunate ones. Those whose half life is spent trying to figure out what they actually want from their lives and the other half somehow trying to adjust and deliver in a muddy situation they have crept into while still chasing the great Indian dream. The dream that their folks and the so called civilized society around them has gotten them into. Which tells them that the world around them is wilder and murkier than they had imagined? That the only refuge from that abyss is to get into a good degree course like engineering or medicines or an MBA afterwards if they somehow deluge you. An engineering degree and an MBA one make a great combo, you have always been told that haven’t you? And better still if they come from the great IITs and the IIMs of our country. And if you have them both then nothing bad can ever harm you . For sinister things normally do not trouble those who work hard or maybe slog is the right word.
And to save you from such situations numerous angel’s workshops have come up around your vicinity proudly claiming themselves as coaching institutes. The guys who get through the good ones are normally referred to as the cream of the student community. And the rest are probably left dejected to suffer and toil in oblivion of their own. To compete with this cream community and to prove their mettle on their own. And even if this wasn’t all another breed of second tier institutes are beginning to raise their heads to help one get through the acclaimed coaching institutes entrance. The simple logic is that every one wants to get a share of the pie even as a scavenger and rake in the big bucks that come along. No wonder it has reached an industry like status in India.
“Does your child have it in him??” shouts a slogan for an acclaimed coaching institute every morning in the daily newspaper. The ‘it’ here refers to the caliber to get into an IIT or AIIMS or an IIM. My question is what if a poor soul doesn’t have it? Does that make him or her lesser mortal being? Can’t we leave the students alone and let them think for themselves for a while? Don’t they have the right to choose what they want from their lives? And this applies to parents too who perhaps are equally burdened with the pressure to see their child in a safe zone where the trilogy of name, fame and money comes in bundles. They also perhaps get a sense of satisfaction and a place of pride in the society too. Perhaps they cannot be blamed for them and perhaps they can be. But the person who suffers the most is the poor student who is asked or rather forced to live upto the dozens of aspirations being counted upon him. Those who make it through become the darlings of everyone around them and suddenly splurged with limelight. Those who don’t are looked down upon as failures and a zillion fingers are pointed on their capabilities and are again asked to go through this tormented journey for one more year in the name of preparations. And if earlier they had missed out on the chance to join an angel’s workshop perhaps get it this time around. Some even crumble down and go to the extent of taking their own lives and are labeled as weaklings in the system who couldn’t handle today’s competition and the pressures (read challenges) that come with it.
Recent news paper headings are filled up with some prospective changes in the educational system hoping to do some miracles for the already over stressed student community. But will mending a few links in a chain improve the situation? The bottom line is that the whole system needs to be inspected right from the very beginning with emphasis on the student’s benefits and not from someone other’s gratification point of view. It’s high time to do something about this educational guillotine that’s killing a young one’s aspirations and his soul but still asking him to stand up and say:

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
(The Invictus by William Earnest Henley)

Whether he needs a psychologist for guidance or the people around him do? The question still needs an answer.