We don't need no education!

Yesterday a kid walked into my store looking for a job.

Middle class family, from a village, willing to work for 5K per month.

An Engineering (graduate)*  from a private college, Electronics and Communication branch, 2012-2016 batch, five arears to clear in Dec 2017 semester...

() denote 'in progress' courses; you would have noticed this mostly in Wedding Invitations :-)

When I got my first job in an Engineering college as Teaching Associate even before receiving my degree certificate, my salary was 1500. 

25 years of economic liberalization later, nothing much has changed in Job front and salary front but a lot has happened on the quality of education and the institutions offering them...

Schools have perfected rote learning to the extent that we have real potential for students to score more than 100 percent (not joking, if you throw in grace marks). There are torture camps run by schools where boarding is compulsory and students are allowed to sleep just 3 hours before resuming cramming, day in and day out. So many parents are willing their kids to endure this as they see this as THE sure shot way to a joyous ride on greenbacks / bit coins. 

Higher education has changed gears from a Public Service / Nation building tool to a 'Winner takes All' high wire business. Engineering and medicine course are still the money spinners. Institutions with money power built their reputations in the last fifteen years by pumping in a part of the dough they collected as donations into state of the art laboratories, swanky buildings with manicured lawns, tie ups with hip foreign institutions and more. Naturally now they are in a position to auction just 250 seats to a lakh of students, many of them having scored 99 percent cut-off marks, some of them just having just money bags; highest bidder wins! - a no brainer (paid in full, upfront before the govt counselling window even begins!. A Biotech Engg. seat was sold for 15 Lakhs few years back in a city college - now it must have doubled!!).

Those private institutions that are not so lucky with Money / Reputation building, are dime a dozen, up for sale, lock stock and barrel - go google to see yourself!

So, the 'bright by scores' middle/lower middle  class rural kids from the bottom of the Indian Pyramid end up only in these age old govt Engg institutions which are treated as pure liability by govt thereby depriving them of survival necessities, forget competing strength!

Most of the kids from rural households are poor and getting poorer by the day due to Water! - scarcity of life giving one (truant monsoons and derelict water body management) and abundance of life taking one (Alcohol)...

Education loans are meant to empower these kids to overcome these and complete the course without financial hardship but many get trapped because the skills they gain in these institutions fall way short of industry expectations but they have a repayment burden which grows heavier each jobless month...

Many of these kids are so poor in English they can't even speak a few correct sentences even if they have high academic scores. Placement cells in these institutes invite only top notch firms due to hangover from a glorious, distant past. They give MSME complete slip but most of these kids essentially end up there much later, on their own, after much trials and tribulations. The top firms that visit their campus slay them on the first few minutes of their personal interaction and go for the rest happily ignoring the fact that even Giants like Google are trying to learn our regional languages and offer their services in a language the hinterland understands! (In a world that is already dominated by Hindi and Mandarin by the sheer number of their people, English still rules! This is like two giant elephants trying to squeeze all their legs into a small money hole just because they think that is the only way they could stand!). So, what language one speaks is not based on 'Mother tongue' but based on 'Money tongue'. Glib ones from urban areas have both but poor kids with only their Mother tongue starve. I wish we will realize some day that if only a speech and hearing impaired kid has the solution for a pressing problem, the whole business world would scramble to learn sign language to communicate with her! Such is the power of idea / talent / innovation; sadly, they are all pushed back by Currency Exchange Rates...

I recently visited an IT park in my city and realized that most Engg graduates employed there are working for pittance and can't afford to splurge even on food! Most stalls in the food court offer only rudimentary low priced snack items and many kids go out of the park just to have lunch in street corner stalls to save that extra buck to pay back their loans (they are not Mallyas!) and maybe to keep the hopes their parents afloat.

This is the Canvas in which we nostalgic Alumni of our institute attempt to paint a bright and bold future with our verve...

It pays to know the terrain we are trying to traverse and transfigure.

We the Alumni are not 'just another brick in the wall'. May the force be with us!