Kota Factory

While some of my readers are waiting to read about my perceptions concerning the recently concluded general elections, let me regale them with an article I recently read in my newspaper, written by a professor of English and creative writing at Ashoka University. It laments worriedly about the massive and pervasive ignorance (not to say stupidity, too) that is highly visible among our so-called talented youth today, if by talented we mean those coached by Kota Factory style cram shops to score marks in the 99th percentile in entrance examinations like the CAT and UPSC. Read the article yourself: I shall not repeat the points  made by the author, nor the pathetic examples.

I can confirm from my own lifelong teaching experience that he is entirely right about the facts. I shall only add that a) this ignorance is not confined only to matters historical ('whether Darwin was BC or AD'), and that this ignorance has been growing apace over the last four decades, so that even to an 'average' student from the early 1980s the 'bright' ones today seem like idiots, and c) pride in ignorance and a 'so what? all my friends are like that or worse' attitude has been growing as fast as the ignorance itself.

Only a few things to add, or demur with. The author has mentioned the deep and abiding preoccupation of large parts of our middle class with education. I should say that became a myth a long time ago: what he means is a preoccupation with marks and jobs, salaries and material things they can buy. Respect for the truly educated (vidwan sarvatra pujyate) has all but vanished: most people I know cannot even tell the difference between being educated and having a lot of degrees (a Tagore compared with Abdul Kalam, anyone?) Also, there is an obsession with knowledge of material and technical things (hence the sciences, engineering and medicine), which leaves out virtually every other sphere of the vast world of knowledge untouched. And finally, there is no retention, even with universally 'favourite and respected' subjects like physics and mathematics and biology - it is all to be crammed to pass examinations and forgotten instantly, as I have verified with thousands of my students and ex students. So it is hard indeed to find a 'knowledgeable' man these days who retains most of what he learnt in school, let alone greater things thereafter. I know: I hear about 'teachers' of physics with MSc or MTech degrees who can teach high school kids light and electromagnetism but not sound or general properties of matter, I have encountered an MSc with a first class in biochemistry who was scared to teach a 17-year old biology because 'she had forgotten so much', and so many schoolteachers who are clueless or talk rubbish without Google at their elbows. If they have to Google everything (which their students can do quite as well by themselves) what exactly are they getting paid for?

As for intelligence, critical thinking and creativity (see the last paragraph of the article), these days it makes me laugh when I don't feel like crying. It takes a lot of creativity and intelligence even to make or appreciate a sophisticated joke, and I long ago lost count of 'highly educated' people who can do neither. Oh, they say, but Einstein said 'imagination is more important than knowledge'! Yes, and that was Einstein. Do NOT cite such examples when you yourself have the brains of a defective ten-year old. Besides, there can be no genuine creativity or critical thinking in a vacuum, as the author of that article has rightly pointed out. 'If I have seen a little farther than most others,' said Newton, 'it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants' (meaning learnt from the great minds of ancient Greece). True, many remarkable discoveries and inventions have been made by sheer serendipity, but that is not to be confused with creativity or original intelligence. As any accomplished writer, poet, musician or inventor will tell you, true and valuable creative ideas come mostly to highly trained and knowledgeable (not merely informed-) minds. And Kota Factory style 'education' destroys whatever creativity and originality a child may be born with. As I said before, it is only churning out dwarf robots by the million, good for nothing except (perhaps somewhat glorified-) back office or sales jobs.

P.S.: For the sake of new readers, and those who like to look up old posts, here is a post titled What does it mean to be intelligent that I wrote back in 2011.