Friday, March 25, 2005

Is it really worth it?

This is an article in the week about the preparation for IIT JEE and other entrance exams and the coaching institutes for these exams.. I must say it reminds me of the days when I was in 11th and 12th.. Running between tuitions, bunking school at will, trying to keep up with the pace of all the tuition teachers as well as your friends.. It was one hell of a time.. Honestly, the best part in those two years were the times I would spend playing cricket in the evenings!! Had I not even done that(like some of my classmates) I would have completely gone mad!! Looking back, maybe it might have helped me clear IIT, but somehow I don't think so.. Anyway, it doesn't matter any more..

There is a mention of Dr. G.N.Chandwani in the article. This gentleman was our Maths teacher and is extremely famous not only in Bhilai, but in most of Chattisgarh for his IIT coaching. He is a legend in his own right and though every year there are easily 30-40 students under him who clear JEE, it doesn't tell the story of how many fail to make it. There are many students who are forced to go to him(and other tuitions) because everyone expects them to do that.

The problem of staying in a place like Bhilai is that the options for any student are limited. Anyone who is not very sure of what to do in the future ends up peparing for IIT. How many of these people make it to the IITs is a different story altogether.. When this system is going to change I don't know.. But it should.. However it is very tough to make people understand all the problems at that stage of their lives.. I guess people would start calling me a hypocrite now having been through the system myself.. At the end of it all, I think most of us come to the conclusion that it wasn't really worth the effort.. And all these poor students who are slogging it out now shall probably say the same thing when they end up joining any engineering college..
And invariably the realization comes too late for one to do anything about it!!

2 comments:

Piyush said...

I came across your blog while looking for footprints Dr. Chandwani in internet. I read this facebook that he passed 2-3 days back (not confirmed).

S R Nathan said...

Looks like i read this blog 13 years late. Dr. Chandwani was my teacher for Mathematics in Class 11 at Sr. Secondary School Sector 10. I used to take tutoring lessons too for Mathematics. However I went to study for Pre Engineering Exam (PET) as his JEE batch was full. Must say it helped me a lot and got me into Govt Engg College Raipur. The man was a bit quirky but brilliant. This was around 1983/84 time frame. He was single at that time and used to commute back to his home in Raipur every Saturday. Occasionally I would drop him at the Supela train station after classes, as I used to live in Sector 10. I am sad to hear he passed away if that is true. I have been in USA ever since my graduation from Raipur, so news is hard to come by but thanks to google & internet we still get this nuggets of info now and then !!