15-Sep-2021: Food for Thought
Just watched the
OTT serial “Kota Factory”. It’s based on a real life situation of tough
competition for entry into prestigious educational institutes.
This stimulated my
mind to think that these coaching institutes help the students to pre-learn
certain fundamentals of technical institutes as well as screening non-serious
candidates. Even candidates themselves realise that they aren’t made for
certain situations. Not everyone is suitable for all situations. On the other
hand we see a sizable number of school / college dropouts doing extremely well
in all spheres of life. Fine, so far so good!
Now let’s just try to
see this from a different prospective: Imagine a candidate, say Ashok is very
studious and hardworking from a well to do family. He joins a reputed coaching
institute and gets a seat in a reputed IIT. He finishes it with distinction and
made himself eligible for an IIM. He clears that too in good grade. Now a job,
sure he gets a highly paying overseas job for a global assignment.
Over a short period
of time, he found no mental satisfaction, and on the other hand he discovered
that he is good at writing and gets pleasure out of it. Slowly he developed his
writing skills and became famous as a writer. Eventually, he quit his job, came
back to India and pursued writing as a full time engagement.
What happened in
the process- the technical training went waste, management training too went
waste. Of course it helped in the mental & personal development of the
individual. But the nation / society didn’t get any return on the educational
expenses (scarce resources utilisation) it incurred for this candidate. Another
candidate could have been trained in place of him, to serve the nation /
society.
For this
phenomenon, I have coined a word “CB Syndrome” after a famous fiction writer
& columnist. If it stimulates your thinking process, let me know. Thanks!
