India's school for the poor but gifted • Hacker News Board

Re: India's school for the poor but gifted

#11

Post by plinkplonk » Sun, Jul 26, 2009, 1:10 PM UTC

known wrote: post #10

theoneill wrote: post #2

The most surprising sentence: "Mr Kumar is guarded around the clock by three policemen carrying AK-47 rifles."

Not very surprising. If you intend to be a responsible citizen in India, you need a licensed Beretta Pistol.

"Not very surprising.

If you intend to be a responsible citizen in India, you need a licensed Beretta Pistol."

This is completely untrue. ( I am Indian and live in India). In India, like in the UK, it is the rare civilian who has a gun, with the badlands of Bihar and some parts of Uttar Pradesh being exceptions. How did you conclude that "being a responsible citizen you need a pistol?"!!

Re: India's school for the poor but gifted

#12

Post by hariis » Sun, Jul 26, 2009, 1:42 PM UTC

My favorite line:

“For a year, you walk, eat, sleep, and dream IIT,” he said. “There’s no room for anything else.”

Re: India's school for the poor but gifted

#13

Post by sridharvembu » Sun, Jul 26, 2009, 3:40 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #8

theoneill wrote: post #2

The most surprising sentence: "Mr Kumar is guarded around the clock by three policemen carrying AK-47 rifles."

What saddens me most is that scarcity of education makes this story possible. The fact that there are so few seats for so many candidates and that the rich have their own inside channels to getting their kids admitted are other reasons for being very careful. What really is needed is the lifting of this scarcity so that everybody can learn to the best of their abilities not just a handpicked few (and not just because…

This is exactly what happened in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. In 1985, when I finished high school, there were less than 10,000 seats in the whole state of (about 60 million people). Today, there are more than 150,000. Today, practically any kid that wants to attend an engineering college can get into one, and many seats actually go unfilled. The quality of the education is spotty, but really, what this education achieved is a kind of placebo effect - give confidence to people, which is what Kumar also describes. This explosion in number of colleges directly played a role in the emergence of the IT industry, which is primarily based in southern India.

I wrote about it in 2006: http://blogs.adventnet.com/svembu/2006/01/19/a-not-so-brief-...

I reposted it now at Zoho: http://blogs.zoho.com/general/why-it-happened-in-southern-in...

Re: India's school for the poor but gifted

#14

Post by DaniFong » Sun, Jul 26, 2009, 7:24 PM UTC

baguasquirrel wrote: post #4

Back in the era of the urban blight (which some of you may be old enough to remember), there were (and still are) schools like this in NYC and SF that have served as a beacon to the poor kids there. It's not as if we can't do that here, and it's not as if no small amount of good comes from them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronx_High_School_of_Science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuyvesant_High_School http://en.wik…

Due to intricacies of the NYC tenure structure, Stuyvesant doesn't even have particularly good teachers -- they get many teacher who are essentially retiring and want students who will teach themselves. It hasn't prevented the school from providing and excellent education, though, but most of it comes from the advanced peer group.

Re: India's school for the poor but gifted

#15

Post by andeka » Mon, Jul 27, 2009, 2:16 AM UTC

screwperman wrote: post #7

Here is a documentary on this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMSYGLbIUxc

Thank you.

Re: India's school for the poor but gifted

#16

Post by known » Fri, Jul 31, 2009, 6:06 AM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #11

known wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not very surprising. If you intend to be a responsible citizen in India, you need a licensed Beretta Pistol.

"Not very surprising. If you intend to be a responsible citizen in India, you need a licensed Beretta Pistol." This is completely untrue. ( I am Indian and live in India). In India, like in the UK, it is the rare civilian who has a gun, with the badlands of Bihar and some parts of Uttar Pradesh being exceptions. How did you conclude that "being a responsible citizen you need a pistol?"!!

http://tr.im/kU5D