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In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

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Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#121

Post by kamaal »

modi15 wrote: post #75
vinni2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only thing 'Indian' about it is that maybe only Indians think that its an 'Indian' thing. I am an Indian and I disagree with this. A large fraction (yes it is changing) of Indian society cares a lot about what relatives and neighbors would think about our lifestyle. There are so many taboos and restrictions inflicted upon family members simply because pressure from relatives and neighbors. My own family keeps q…

Thats because you are not a part of that society. Once you do become, you will realise that it comes with its own baggage.

No but Indian society carries this a little too far. Women in your neighborhood are always around to slander other women if they come to home late from work, or if they hang out with a male colleague.

Relatives are quick to tell you, some times even through sadistic remarks about things they don't like. You also seem to become an object of ridicule in case of failure.

Other irrational expectations include wedding expenditure, gifts and other show off stuff. Even clothes. You won't believe how many people seek social approval and standing from these things.

In case of exams and lay offs, the kind of discussion going on here. Many people play out the whole thing as some gory dead doomsday outcome, after which you would never be worthy of anything ever. Of course this doesn't do well for conformists, they just get anxious and end up taking these extreme decisions.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#122

Post by ItsMe000001 »

shubhamjain wrote: post #30
chii wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was very lucky to escape this trap. I considered myself to be very dumb and knew that there's absolutely no chance I was going to make it. so what did you do instead? and can that be replicated by 100,000 other young people?

> so what did you do instead? and can that be replicated by 100,000 other young people? Theoretically, it can be replicated. The tools that I have used to learn everything are accessible to most of the people I have met. But, whatever may be the reasons, it just doesn't happen.

"Can be replicated as in "anyone can do it" or as in "everyone can do it"?

I love that the English language has two words ("anyone" and "everyone") that seem to be similar, but which in fact lead to vastly different scenarios.

Too many "solutions" people give for societal problems are of the "anyone" kind.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#123

Post by akshat_h »

rc_hadoken wrote: post #50
manojlds wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to admit my daughter to pre kindergarten, the school expects her to know the alphabet already. Talk about pressure.

Is that hard to teach..I mean..its the alphabet..Excuse my possibly ignorant questioning.

It is expected for them to know the English alphabet. English is not the primary language spoken in most of India, so it is more difficult than it might seem.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#124

Post by vram22 »

osrec wrote: post #82

India is an interesting place at the moment and the pressure to succeed is immense (often to the detriment of personal wellbeing). So much so that cheating schemes are commonly devised by large groups of people, and the ingenuity involved is often quite remarkable and creative. I've personally hired a number of people in my Delhi office from the local IIT, and these are a few things I've noticed amongst new grads: pa…

Good points in general.

>What's funny, however, is that if you walk past an Indian shanty town, you will find examples of (often illegal) innovation at every corner, from stolen electricty to rigged water meters etc - usually concocted by people with little education. The innovative mindset exists in the heart of Indian society,

Yes, very true. Seen stuff like this myself. A couple of examples:

1. When living in Bhopal (city in central India) in teens, I used to frequent auto mechanic shops to get my bike or jeep fixed. Over many such visits over years, I was often amazed to see the way they innovated and managed with less resources, scrounged, adapted, etc., to get parts, to fix things, etc. I remember multiple cases where they were fixing a vehicle problem and needed a rod or wire or screw, and would just look around a bit, and almost inevitably would find some piece of metal nearby that fit the need, and make use of it, maybe with a bit of tweaking, such as filing, bending or hammering it. Of course, in a mechanic's shop you expect parts and scrap to be lying around, but still, it was uncanny. In North and Central India they use the word jugad a lot (some spell it jugaad, and it has a Wikipedia entry too, IIRC), for this ability or approach (not just related to mechanic's work but for anything in life), and that is what inspired me to name both my blogs "jugad", since the broad topic of both is software innovation. The older one, jugad's Journal, which was at jugad.livejournal.com, is not available now, after LiveJournal was acquired (except maybe via the internet Archive), but I've been blogging at the newer one, jugad2.blogspot.com, since 2008, except for some gaps.

2. In Pune, once, I was looking for C. K. Prahlad's book "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid". [1] I first went into a well-known bookstore, Manny's, and asked the salesperson there for it. He had a lackadaisical manner and almost did not bother to reply, just mumbled something. maybe saying no. Then I went out and just nearby, saw a bookstall on the footpath. I mentioned the book to the guy. Not only did he know the book title, he also knew the author's name, and mentioned a few other books by him. He then said he did not have the book right then, but could arrange to procure it in a few days. Sure enough, when I went back there a few days later, he had the book available, in the original, and I bought it. Very enterprising people, they often are, the roadside vendors and such, often more than more privileged people.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._K._Prahalad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fortune_at_the_Bottom_of_t...

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#125

Post by scarface74 »

chongli wrote: post #90
osrec wrote: post #82

India is an interesting place at the moment and the pressure to succeed is immense (often to the detriment of personal wellbeing). So much so that cheating schemes are commonly devised by large groups of people, and the ingenuity involved is often quite remarkable and creative. I've personally hired a number of people in my Delhi office from the local IIT, and these are a few things I've noticed amongst new grads: pa…

What you're witnessing is the contradiction between real education (designed for learning) and credentialism. The truth is that the world is facing a massive crunch. Billions of people are struggling to get out of the circumstances they're trapped in. Getting a credential and getting a professional job is seen as one of the only paths out of the mire. People who are desperate have no interest in free thinking. Their…

Credentualisn hasn't gotten so bad that if I see a resume with certifications, I take that as a negative signal when I am interviewing candidates.

On the other hand, I've done a few certifications in my day but mostly to force myself To learn something. I usually leave the certifications off of my resume because of the stigma. I will talk about projects that I've done using the technologies.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#126

Post by harryVic »

thewhitetulip wrote: post #96

The issue is that kids aren't taught to handle pressure, that is the main problem because parents pamper kids until they go to college! as a child, you are not allowed to have your own decisions, like ever. You eat what your parents tell you to eat, you take admission to undergrad/postgrad about what your parents tell. You study hard as they told you, they even decide when and to whom you lose virginity! (arranged ma…

I agree with you on most things but not the last part. Have you even seen Indian Engineering/Medical entrance exam questions? North American high school exams are a joke compared to Indian Engineering Entrance tests. And IITs are good schools. They aren't ranked as high because they don't fulfil the breadth requirements for those ranking studies. They are purely engineering schools.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#127

Post by lyk »

abraham_s wrote: post #101

An anecdote and a poll. I grew up in India in middle class family where education was considered important. A recurring nightmare (autual dream I see during sleep) I see even in my adulthood is about me about to take an exam and not being prepared for it. I do not see this nightmare often but I still remember it since the amount of panic I feel when I see it. I discussed with my wife and she also have these nightmare…

That happens to a lot of college graduates I know. They stopped for me around a year or so after graduating.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#129

Post by vram22 »

osrec wrote: post #98
chongli wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're witnessing is the contradiction between real education (designed for learning) and credentialism. The truth is that the world is facing a massive crunch. Billions of people are struggling to get out of the circumstances they're trapped in. Getting a credential and getting a professional job is seen as one of the only paths out of the mire. People who are desperate have no interest in free thinking. Their…

Ironically, I think it is seen as the only path, because it is marketed as such. Education is big business in India, and there is a banner advertising a trashy "college" on every corner. The quality is rarely great, yet the price is relatively steep. It just pushes people further into poverty, because the education fails to generate the opportunities it promises.

> there is a banner advertising a trashy "college" on every corner.

Right. In the computer field, for example, private "institutes" offering "post-graduate diplomas" are a dime a dozen, in every city, in the downtown as well as suburban areas. The standard signboards or ads for them show that they teach "C/C++, Java, .NET, web design, ASP.NET, Oracle, AutoCAD, HTML/CSS/JavaScript, ...". And it's mostly former "graduates" of the institutes that do the teaching, with no real life experience. As for the virtual version of these, I regularly get contacted by training companies (middlemen) for conducting courses for clients on Python, Linux or other skills I have. Many of them turn out to be shady in their practices and I have to fob them off.

Re: In India, high-pressure exams are creating a student suicide crisis

#130

Post by nradov »

110011 wrote: post #86
osrec wrote: post #82

India is an interesting place at the moment and the pressure to succeed is immense (often to the detriment of personal wellbeing). So much so that cheating schemes are commonly devised by large groups of people, and the ingenuity involved is often quite remarkable and creative. I've personally hired a number of people in my Delhi office from the local IIT, and these are a few things I've noticed amongst new grads: pa…

Without a doubt all the years of exam preparation in the teenage years come at a steep cost. For a young person in their teens to not have the time to reflect, be self-aware, and explore what life has to offer, is necessarily a failure of the system as a whole. But that is the reality in India, and if students must trade all that for studying hard then it simply reflects their (I would argue correct) perspective on t…

No one in any country can really opt to be a YouTuber or pro basketball player. I mean a few people manage to do it through a combination of talent, luck, and hard work but they're so few as to be statistically insignificant from a career planning standpoint. On average US and Indian high school students have approximately the same chance of becoming an NBA player: ≈0%.
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