More-marks syndrome

By Chinnaa

Greetings from Chinnaa!

With the advent of admissions in Indian schools every year , parents of children of all ages and courses are running from pillar to post to fix their kids in the best schools or colleges hoping that these institutions will be a smooth platform in future to land up in a profitable career.

In the process, they forget to inculcate value-education for their kids. Truthfulness, honesty, dignity of labor, respect for others are some of the attributes that are to be observed sincerely by a boy or girl to be groomed into better citizens.

The tendency to compare everything in terms of marks is highly illogical and irrational. Every where in the world students are evaluated in grades so that they are placed in a scale. But in India students are given marks as percentage as if they are accurately evaluated of their knowledge, calibre and capability in a subject.

That is why we see students who score lesser marks compare their marks with others and sometimes are taking the extreme step of committing suicides as the media reports suggest. Parents scold their kids for scoring low marks. Schools display the highest mark scorers in the media and in their own notice boards so as to get more admissions in future. Any way it is wrong to come to a hasty conclusion on the basis of marks.

The greediness for more marks compel the students to go for private tutorials, schools to arrange for extra coaching, and the parents to invest more. Once the exam of the course and the admission into a new course are over ever body forgets the subjects.

In the 10th and 12th levels there are marks. In professional courses such as engineering, medicine, technical, law, management, arts and sciences there are cut off marks. The 'more marks-syndrome' has affected the students mentally, psychologically and to some extent physically, making them sleepless, tiresome and dejected in life.

The other aspects of childhood are completely given up. They don’t enjoy picnics, read novels, and engage in creative faculties they like. For some students, these marks land them up in a profession they don’t like.

“I wanted to pursue a career in media but my parents wanted and put me in medicine”

“I loved to be a pilot but my father put me in Information technology”

These were some of the observations that were made in media which serve to substantiate the concept that 'more marks-syndrome' does not encourage real development of a human being, rather a competitive and market driven career.

With warm regards, Chinnaa.