Corporate Junior Colleges- Basking In “Students Glory”!!

Originally written for "Metropolis" A youth magazine for Hyderabad.

Have a look at the site, go click it!

Education in India has taken a leap so big that it has left the significance of the term behind, while taking the commercial glory forward. Numerous junior colleges are being deployed in every part of the country making the “vital” stage of education a mere parody. With the Ivy-League colleges like the IIT’s, NIT’s and other top private colleges setting the standard high students, not colleges, are the ones who face the music. Every year 2-3 lakh students get in pursuit to clinch that one “coveted” seat at the top colleges, and, the stakes are too high, the pressure insurmountable, and expectations weakening the shoulders, the students compete for just a few thousand seats.

While the Top colleges are busy in setting the bar high, the corporate junior colleges are grinding the students to perfection so that, their getting past the bar will lure more students to join the college in the next academic year. The vendetta between the different junior colleges is no less than a war! No college leaves no stone unturned as they rigorously train students to the extent where the student tends to remember the question number along with the page number along with the solution of course. 

The junior colleges tend to forget that they are training humans not machines, the students servility is very much appreciated as they make themselves vulnerable in order to clinch that one seat. The vulnerability is something that comes from within, with the peer pressure, the parental pressure and not to mention the college managements’ pressure.

The corporate colleges from the very beginning of the first year of the two year course start lashing out at students- giving them numerous amount of material that one could not possibly imagine of, examining them every week twice or thrice and in order to this, exhibit the results that builds more pressure on students as there are students who are ahead of them. I completely agree to the fact of displaying results, but the scenario and consequences that are staged later is what that concerns me. 

Students tend to believe that they are way far behind in this cat and mouse race and face the brunt. Every parent wants their kids to get into IIT’s and the NIT’s and also other private colleges, but the fact is there is no place for all of them; it is not circus to get in to those colleges. What’s perplexing and astonishing is all want to get in to the top colleges, if that’s the case, who are to join the colleges that are ranked after?

Corporate colleges are the demigods of intermediate education. They rule this phase of education and tend to do the same for the coming years. Now, the scenario depicted outside is way different from the one that is staged inside, students are the pawns that are staged in a fight with the kings (Top colleges in this game), where in the recent times “death” comes into play, Why? Assumed by many people that’s the most viable option when one’s game ends in a “stalemate”

The corporate colleges slap huge amount of fee on students as they know the students have nowhere to go, the levied fee sometimes amounts to more than 1-2 lacs for all they know that getting into the ivy-league colleges is not certain yet. The education is not worth the money people pay, no proper facilities are provided, and students are grinded to hell. The curriculum includes studies and studies only right from the morning 8 a.m to 8 in the evening. With no proper food and physical exercise the students suffer lack of concentration at all times. 

The tryst with exams, books, study and exams goes on for two miserable years, at the end of which only few bask in glory. Corporate colleges have been beguiling people for years now, they join 500-600 students and how many get in to the top colleges is a hand few, who are failing when it comes to going through the course at the IIT’s and NIT’s. 

The education here in the corporate colleges is spoon fed to students and they tend to mug up all the formulae and numerical because they have doing the same models for the past 2 years day and night incessantly. Now, when they face the D-day all the numerical seem similar to the ones they have been mugging up (which they think they have solved) for 2 years. The etchings deepen once they get into the top graduation colleges, where they are left to design their own future let alone education and notes.

The corporate junior colleges luring mechanisms are no less than a commercials ad and a captivating one at that. With a filthy yet catchy catch phrases imbibed in a video depicting the various statistics of the results ranging from the ranks to marks and segregating different sections as Top 10, Top 50, Top 100 and relentlessly displaying the commercial again and again, thanks to the media channels as they run and show everything for money despite its worth being abysmal. The scholarships to the backward economy classes are promised by the junior colleges, but just like our politicians their promises are void. The economically backward sections of the society face the music and are being forced to follow suit with the middle class and high class when it comes to paying the exorbitant fees. At the end of the day as we speak lacs of students end up perturbed, vulnerable, and emotionally weak.

The money is literally squandered under the pretext of education in India, with Engineering and Medicine being the buzz words all over and the prospect of their child being an Engineer and a Doctor makes their parents even more vulnerable and helpless. With the corporate colleges basking in students’ success year after year, there is no blaming the anxious parents who want their lads to bask in glory. 

But, with a student perspective, if seen, this entire rigmarole seems an immense and intense task where nothing is certain yet.

Adios!