A new and an innovative engineering college
This is a work of fiction.
Edited to add: “Spoon feeding on the long run teaches you nothing but the shape of the spoon”
“You might be sceptical about admitting your children in the new engineering college that we have just started. That’s why, I, the chairman of this new college, have come down personally to tell you why you ought to. We have got a ten minute slot to speak about our college in this career counselling exhibition and I assure you – that’s all we want!
This is not just another engineering college. This is a unique model of education being introduced for the first time and this model offers the highest degree of flexibility.
We don’t take donations. We are against that concept. But we do take a special fees which is only required for the various developmental activities of your children. So, next time when someone asks you how much donation you paid to join your ward in the engineering college, you can proudly say ‘we didn’t pay anything’.
Once your wards join our prestigious institution, you don’t have to worry at all. Everything is arranged. Everything.
If you ask any alumni of any university affiliated institution, the first thing they would say is that the syllabus is hopelessly out of date. And it has no connection to the industry requirements, whatsoever. Secondly, they would also tell you that they are not applying even 1% of what they learnt in colleges in their work environment. They are correct. We don’t refuse it. In fact, we can tell you that they could have memorized a thousand equations and its derivatives without knowing why. Even the syllabus offered by the university that this college is affiliated to, is hopeless!
That’s why we bring to you an innovative methodology – We do not allocate classes to the students but we allocate classes to the teachers in their chosen specialization. Your children could choose any subject that they might be interested in – Don’t worry there is always a software job! We also include classes on a variety of interesting activities like painting, games, astronomy, blogging etc. and the students can spend their time usefully learning something that they might be interested in and find amusing. They need not come to the college at all, if they don’t want to. It is just enough if a certain amount of special fees are paid in compensation. But we don’t see that happening – we’ll make the college a cool place to hang out!
Our system of evaluation of marks is even more impressive. We have a back end arrangement with the university staff to secure the future of your children, of course, for a special fee. We have a bidding system in place in our college. The university staff have allocated certain range of marks for every subject and all the students get an equal chance to bid for the highest range. Who ever bids the highest amount will get the highest slot. As simple as that! And don’t worry – we will ensure that the marks never go below 75% if a certain amount of special fees is paid in advance. So now, obtaining more marks is in your hands – literally! Imagine how much money you will save by not sending your childern to tutions!
Don’t be astonished already. Now we come to the most important part – the placements. We have an MOU with five software companies already, and more are expected in the future, where they have assured us that all the staff will be recruited from our college. Of course, we have a profit sharing agreement with them which in turn will be collected from you by the – you would have guessed already – special fees. We can assure you that your investment is totally worth it and we can even prove it using our ROI(Return on investment) calculator. You can get back the amount you invested in approximately 4 years, even if you go through the placements that we offer!
So by now it should be obvious that we have a win-win situation for everyone. The students are happy, so are the parents, and of course the college management.
Now it is your turn to speak – Why would you not want to join your wards in our innovative college which would secure their future?”
Speak! 🙂
You could visit the ‘Quotations and Humour’ section of this blog for more articles like this.
Destination Infinity
lol 😛
I thought for some time, and categorised this in the Humour section! 🙂
Destination Infinity
it will sell 😀 we can save the kids from the system…all we need is money and knowing our country , we will see an increase in fake currency…
You forgot to mention their 'world-class' faculty … 🙂
When i wrote this i wanted to think like a chairman – Strange, that the quality of the faculty did not come to my mind. Or is it? 🙂
Destination Infinity
HaHa! That was fun.
By the way, have you heard about the concept of Quantum Computers. Maybe there won't be any engineers required after a few years. 😉
I think engineers are not required in India, even today 😛
Destination Infinity
Lol! This is wonderful! I wish I could go back to such a place 😉
The very idea of writing such a post was to drive at least a few people out of the regular engineering and medical streams! But if a college is there like the above, then it would definitely be nice to become a student there. At least, we can have fun 🙂
Destination Infinity
Good one . Did you study in Manipal , by any chance ? 🙂
No 🙂 I guess most of them are similar.
Destination Infinity
I echo Kislay. Went to Manipal and something similar was almost sold to me – and it was so tempting. Sadly I did not have the going rate of cash for "development activities", so my son did not join
It's sometimes good to know the actualities of the incidental expenses beforehand 🙂
Destination Infinity
Lol:), but seriously there are different type of schools and educations also, but how many parents have the courage to admit their ward to them. we have one in Chennai also, where they totally impart informal education with more emphasois on getting the students sensitive to nature, environment and such things,
Interesting and good point. There are three players – students, parents and the society in general.
Students don't have much exposure when they finish the 12th standard. They would only want to do what their friends want to. The parents, at least Indian parents tend to play it very very safe. I can't really blame them as I might too react in the same way when my turn comes in future.
The society – This is what I am not able to understand! If some one does something drastically different, the society reacts by talking nonsense about them, even though they are not even remotely affected! Especially the relatives and the friends circle which is nearer. Perhaps this is one reason why the parents become afraid (They are also afraid that the kid might blame them after some years). But they will have to understand one thing – if they want to blame the parents, the children will do it irrespective of what was given to them by their parents!
It is for the parents to really decide if the environment based education/ archaeological surveying etc. is the best for their children. Only in India we hesitate on such decisions. In Australia, for example, there are sports schools – dedicated to making the people excellent sports persons. A lot of people attend it – it is a normal school with a lot of focus on sporting activities. Even if some of them fail to become exceptional sports persons, they can always come back to the mainstream jobs. No wonder this country is winning so many gold medals in Olympics. Even in the United States, the students take courses which interest them. This engineering-software jobs is a silly but viscous circle here in India and it is blinding our youth from exploring other interesting careers.
Destination Infinity
MY neighbour teaches there, and he has put his daughter slao there, I relayy respect him for that, as in my eyes he is a gutsy father.
He is, no doubt.
Destination Infinity
LOL 😀 Interesting!!
A chairman does mention its faculty in an advertisement 🙂
That's right, I missed it! But don't worry I will never become a chairman! Maybe enough damage has been done to the students, parents and the management by this post that at least the faculty have been spared. A separate post for them :p ? Maybe you can do it 🙂
Destination Infinity
Ha..ha..ha.. good one, DI.
Love that edited quote.
"Spoon feeding on the long run teaches you nothing but the shape of the spoon". Apt!
Thanks for noticing it. That quote was the inspiration to do this whole post!
Destination Infinity
😆 That was a good one and more so as it put a huge smile on my face early in the morning 🙂
It is a good quality to laugh at ourselves! 🙂
Destination Infinity
Dude your satire rocks! Enjoyed it so much! This is so performable as a play 😀 :d
Kudos!!
Instead of humour, I should change the category as satire I guess…. Thanks.
Destination Infinity
brilliant!! if only more ppl thot like u!
love the satirical and ironic tone throughout the post!
Maybe what is obvious to us is not clear to others. Or maybe they just don't want the clarity. Either way, the whole nation is going to suffer because of such closed mentalities.
Destination Infinity
blogrolling u btw 🙂
This is the best way to rant. This doesn't seem to be getting any better in near future!
I have lots to rant about our schooling system too …
You have identified the crux of the article – Ranting!! 🙂 I don't think the general situation will change soon but I hope at least some people will change their attitudes towards such education and try to make a difference. Even if 1% of our population start going in the right direction, the remaining 99% will follow, I hope.
Destination Infinity
PS: I heard that the schools have started copying the model of Engg. Colleges and have started to take advantage of 'Education business'! But I was fortunate to be in a gem of a school and hence I have no regrets there.
Are you going to Teach them to Ask Questions ?
I can't. If they could learn to question, they would have learnt to question themselves by now!
Destination Infinity
a lot of US schools do provide personal counseling, looks like the trend is catching up in india too
It is a good thing to do. But I doubt how much of such counselling is useful to students. I think the learning ought to come from within, for students or through parental guidance, as parents know them best!
Destination Infinity
Your story has a moral DI! Nice subject and an interesting read. I have been reading the stories you have posted off and one although I have not commented.
That's perfectly fine, Nita. I try to have some moral in all the stories but don't say it directly. I want to know the views of readers as I am myself not clear about the morals I employ in some of the stories!
Destination Infinity
Spoon feeding on the long run teaches you nothing but the shape of the spoon”
this one I loved and
Everything is arranged. Everything.
I liked this one too 😀
the whole post is great for laughs 😀
great rant 😀 atleast some way we can let it all out of our system 😀
We let it all out of our system hoping that we get relieved a bit and also hoping that something will change! Acceptance of the mistake is the first step to correcting it, and most of the time we are not clear about the 'mistake' itself.
Destination Infinity
'Spoon feeding on the long run teaches you nothing but the shape of the spoon”
Best line to start this post, DI. In most of the schools – reputed ones – are doing this. Tests will be conducted everyday for each and every lesson and so each and every syllable is fixed in their memory. If they miss one syllable, everything collapses. The mind becomes blank. If the question is not straight forward – is twisted – the don't understand.
My relative girl used to do that. If I ask her to write ka kha ga gha in Hindi, she used to say, she did not know. But she wrote 5 lines about Gandhiji within seconds. I asked her to write just one sentence from the 5 lines, which I dictated from the middle, she was not able to write it. With this type of photo memory, she did her M.Phil also. But she is not able write on ordinary mail to me, without grammar mistakes in English!
One more relative was a teach in 'The School' here in Adyar. He used to love his students and the school. Most of the children were happy to come to school, because they did not insist just on book studying, but they included painting, theater and other interesting activities. Yes, most of the students were from very well to do families, who did not want their children just to become engineers or doctors. But some middle class parents were shifting their children from this school to other 'normal' schools when they came to 9th std.! But we can't blame them.
The point you make about 'The School' is interesting. It is good to know that such schools exist. Hopefully more such schools will have people's support.
What is amusing to me is, why can't the syllabus itself (even for a subject like science) be made more interesting? Why are the students tested on their memorization skills than their understanding of the subject? This happens even in engineering colleges where the equations are mindlessly memorized! We are only concerned about the marks scored by our wards, we don't care as to how such marks were scored!! Mindless setting of standards, partly due to ignorance. What amazes me is, how can a whole society be silent on such blatant nonsense? There was a good revision in the teaching of English for CBSE schools where there was no need to memorize anything or there were no standard questions. The examinations contained extrapolative questions – like what would you have done if you were in that situation etc. which sparked the creative side of our brains. Why can't we have such practical approach to subjects like science and history which will incidentally improve our knowledge on those subjects instead of just having a mug-all reproduce all forget all approach?
These things not happening doesn't bother me, but the way the parents consider the educational system and the marks obtained through it as Gods judgement really bothers me. That way, we are openly accepting that we do not care for quality. When we don't care about quality, we don't get it – as simple as that!
Destination Infinity
DI, That was fantastic! And so relevant.. Our entire system needs an overhaul. Children as young as 2 are in schools forcefed a diet of numbers and alphabets! You know, one thing I found in Uk was the the primary schools have a different approach. They encourage imagination and teach by rewarding rather than punishing.. They have days out to farms and chidren learn while playing… in direct contrast to how its done in India.
I even know a school that keeps the students who failed and the students who score more than 85% (The middle folk are spared though) in the school till 8 O Clock in the night and make them memorize the syllabus. The positive point in that is their quest to betterment. But the huge negative point is: they are clueless about what is betterment! They seem to have no idea about quality – they are just bothered about the quantity (read: marks). And the people whose kids go through such mindless education support it! It is time we learn good things from abroad, like what you just mentioned. We should also learn the good things in the same speed that we learn the bad ones!
Destination Infinity