On Mar 19, 7:28=A0pm, PaPaPeng <PaPaP...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> It ain't much better in China except there is universal education for
> eight years, now free, and there are more top class universities.
>
> India's highlights:
> 1. =A0it puts an undue emphasis on rote learning and passing exams with
> a high percentage discounting creativity and personality development.
> 2. =A0the student demographic - about 70% of India's 1.1 billion
> population is under 30 years, a sizeable chunk of which are students -
> leads to an enormous demand-supply gap. For instance, this year, over
> 1.3 million students are appearing for the Class X and XII Board exams
> conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) as
> against the 1.2 million who appeared last year.
> 3. =A0IIT-JEE (Joint Entrance Examination)... around 350,000 students
> will compete for 5,000 seats.
> 4. =A0Indian Institute of Management (IIM), .... 250,000 applicants,
> only 1,200 manage to procure seats each year. ... even more selective
> than all the top US business schools put together. ... overall
> acceptance rate at IIM ranges between 0.1 to 0.4% compared with the
> acceptance rate of around five to 10% in the top US schools.
>
> Killing stress for India's best and brightest
> Hundreds of recent student suicides attest to the sad truth that in
> today's India, the pressure to excel can be lethal. Gargantuan numbers
> of applicants face a maddening exam process for extremely limited
> placement at the top-notch schools needed for lucrative careers. Add
> to this intense family pressure, an outdated and under-funded
> education system and a society in intense transition and it's all too
> clear that many of India's young people are dying to succeed. - Neeta
> Lal (Mar 19, '08)
>
> Killing stress for India's best and brightest
> By Neeta Lal
> March 20, 2008http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JC20Df01.html
>
> NEW DELHI - "I'll come back as a ghost to haunt my teachers," read the
> suicide note of a teenaged Indian student who recently shot himself in
> the head due to exam-linked stress. Another student - 16-year-old
> Anita Naresh - quaffed a bottle of pesticide in the run-up to her
> annual exams. More recently, Rajneesh Mittal, 17, created a national
> kerfuffle by trying to kill himself inside an examination hall.
>
> March is the year's most dreaded month for Indian students: it's exam
> time and the pressure to excel can be lethal. This year, as many as
> 100 students have already committed suicide - in sometimes bizarre
> situations - across the sub-continent, leaving the country, and
> especially its parents, wondering whether the final deathly toll will
> exceed the 2006 mark when a staggering 5,857 Indian students attempted
> suicide due to exam blues, according to the National Crime Records
> Bureau.
>
> Disquietingly, those who aren't pushed to the brink still have to
> grapple with acute anxiety and depression. Some are even led to
> experiment with macabre stress-busting recipes. This year's "hot"
> stress relievers, for instance, are broth made from lizard's body
> parts, bread slices smeared with pain-relief ointments and shoe
> polish, anti-epilepsy drugs, and the fumes of nail polish removers.
>
> "Some students from the science stream are even making their own drugs
> from chemicals and salts available in their school labs," said New
> Delhi-based cardiologist Dr K K Agarwal, president of the Heart Care
> Foundation of India, at a recent press conference in Delhi. Helping
> the students in their quest for such life-threatening stress-busters,
> says the doctor, are websites which give them a step-by-step recipes
> for the concoctions.
>
> According to clinical psychologist Dr Vedahi Bharati, there's an
> urgent need for cyber laws which can vet these web ****tals. The expert
> also proposes laws for parents, children, chemists and pharmaceutical
> companies to stop the casual buying and selling of OTC (over the
> counter) stress-relieving amphetamine drugs whose sales skyrocket
> during the exam period.
>
> Exam stress isn't a particularly new phenomenon on the Indian academic
> landscape. Cases of depression and the stray suicide case have been
> common for many years. But lately, the situation has acquired a new
> gravitas with newspapers and TV channels re****ting student suicides
> nearly every day.
>
> What's pu****ng today's Indian students - a bright generation with a
> global reputation for their high intelligence quotient - to the brink?
> Experts believe the problem is symptomatic of a deeper issues;
> parental and peer pressure, rising ambitions and fierce competition
> are brewing a deadly cocktail for these young minds. Moreover, a
> nation racing towards affluence, an economy on a remarkable upward
> growth trajectory and skyrocketing salaries are putting unprecedented
> pressure on youth to succeed.
>
> According to Delhi-based clinical psychologist Dr Veena Deb, "Parental
> expectations have also risen enormously over the years which is
> propelling these kids to breaking point." Deb feels that the changing
> dynamics of the Indian family - particularly, the death of the joint
> family system - means that there are fewer family elders around to
> counsel the young. With both parents working, and nobody at home to
> turn to in a crisis, it's easier for the youth to engage in high-risk
> behavior.
>
> Unsurprisingly, around March, it's common for student helplines,
> resurrected by numerous voluntary organizations and non-governmental
> organizations, to be inundated with distress calls. "Most students
> feel relieved to be able to just pick up the phone and share their
> fears with someone," said a volunteer at a New Delhi-based helpline
> service. "It's a great catharsis for them and works like a salve for
> their frazzled minds."
>
> The volunteer said many callers complain about pushy parents and
> recounted that last week a boy called in to ask where he could buy a
> pistol to shoot his mother for nagging him too much.
>
> Sanjeevini, an official from another crisis intervention center, said,
> "An identity crisis, uncertainty regarding getting admission to the
> courses of their choice in college and a fear of low marks sullying
> their reputation are usually the main reasons for students attempting
> to end their lives."
>
> Apart from insecurity and societal change sweeping across India,
> another big reason for student distress is the modern Indian education
> system. Outdated and flab-ridden, it puts an undue emphasis on rote
> learning and passing exams with a high percentage discounting
> creativity and personality development.
>
> Of course there's no denying that in India, the student demographic -
> about 70% of India's 1.1 billion population is under 30 years, a
> sizeable chunk of which are students - leads to an enormous
> demand-supply gap. For instance, this year, over 1.3 million students
> are appearing for the Class X and XII Board exams conducted by the
> Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) as against the 1.2 million
> who appeared last year.
>
> These gargantuan numbers will create a mad scramble for the limited
> number of seats available at the top-notch engineering, medical and
> business schools that yield the most lucrative career options. For the
> undergraduate B-Tech and M-Tech programs offered through IIT-JEE
> (Joint Entrance Examination), for instance, around 350,000 students
> will compete for 5,000 seats.
>
> Similarly, for the blue-chip Indian Institute of Management (IIM),
> from a large pool of about 250,000 applicants, only 1,200 manage to
> procure seats each year. This makes the exam even more selective than
> all the top US business schools put together. In fact the overall
> acceptance rate at IIM ranges between 0.1 to 0.4% compared with the
> acceptance rate of around five to 10% in the top US schools.
>
> Keeping this severe crunch in mind, proponents of a better education
> system have often criticized the Indian government's frugal
> expenditure on education. According to the Kothari Commission set up
> in 1966, which put forward the blueprint for reform of the Indian
> education system, the central expenditure on education should be a
> minimum of 6% of gross domestic product (GDP). However, India's
> current figure hovers around 4%, far less than Saudi Arabia which
> invests 9.5% of its GDP in education and Norway, Malaysia, France and
> South Africa all of who spend in excess of 5%.
>
> Apart from insufficient funding, many feel the entire Indian education
> system needs a revamp as it is based on an archaic template
> established by the British in the 19th century. S****adic attempts by
> the Central Board of Secondary Education to relax admission criteria
> and make the exam system more student-friendly, have been brushed
> aside by critics as feeble sideshows, not really targeted at tackling
> the root of the problem.
>
> All this is a pity considering India, the world's largest democracy,
> is increasingly viewed as a strong global player due to its exploding
> economic growth and enviable human resource wealth. If Delhi refuses
> to do anything about the future of India's young people - many of whom
> are literally killing themselves over academic pressure - it ought to
> be a matter of national shame.
>
> New Delhi-based independent journalist Neeta Lal has had her work
> published in over 70 publications across 20 countries .
Boy are you obsessed with india
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