“People call Mumbai ‘Mayanagri’- the city of dreams, I callParraypora, Srinagar, the place of dreams”, enthusiastic applause followed ashe started off the introduction with this dreamy line. Beautiful hoardings andhuge lists and banners featuring numerous faces that cracked some entrance examattracted me like any other student who wanted to become a doctor or anengineer. Thousands of students young in blood, highly enthusiastic, toweringconfidence and ingenuous receptivity of my batch flocked to different coachinginstitutes as soon as the class 10th board examination- the most talked abouttopic of every Kashmiri family, was over. With no criteria set for admission,thousands of students were enrolled in each coaching institute irrespective ofconsidering any intake capacity limit, interest of students or the ability of astudent to carry on with science subjects. We started off our journey of 2.5years or maybe 3 or maybe 4 or maybe a lifetime.
Piles of forms along with bundles of money (in cash) whichwere to be paid in advance and a huge crowd of students, assurance to ourparents that their child will definitely be a doctor as we can see one inhim/her and calling an 11th class student ‘Doctor Saeb’ from the first day, itwas impossible that everything could go so right. Some innocent parents evenanswered their relatives that their child was doing ‘Doctor Training’ whenasked about them.
Coming from a very well protected and secure environment ofour schools and having a mindset that teachers were there to guide and all weneeded to do was just study to crack the upcoming competitive exam, was no morethan an illusion, or maybe a deception.
A 2-day campaigning programme was done where all sorts ofpromises (that were meant to be broken) were made.
The no assesment test series
The first illusion to fade was of regular “test series”,instead an extremely minor test, in which 10 students used to sit on a singlebench was held, either there was no answer key to make self-assessment or allthe answers mentioned in the key were wrong. Protests about the wrong key weresilenced by saying that, “These tests force you to study. You are gettingprepared, right? Then how do these marks matter?” This tension releasingstatement became worse when these extremely poor marks (calculated according tothe wrong key) were sent via an SMS to our parents. No parent can ever acceptthe point that the answer key is incorrect. The only conclusion to be drawn wasthat their child was not serious about studies.
Never ending syllabus
The promise of syllabus completion was the second one to go.We were taught on the very first day that study pattern was going to changefrom now onwards as we had stepped into a higher class and were aspiring tocrack a much higher level exam. The habit of thoroughly completing a vastchapter within 5-6 days or in a week, which we carried from our school, hadupgraded to forcibly wrapping a small one within 3 months. We were directed toshift to some dummy school as schools waste our time and devote each bit of usto our coaching centres. Innocent puppets followed until we realised that forbecoming a doctor or an engineer, we first need to pass the board exams. Twoyears and only four days in school – two for admission and two for collectingcertificates was the “mantra of success”. What about the 75% attendancecriteria set up by schools? What about the practical exams? Where did thestudents get the data of experiments from without performing them? What isgoing on? Where is the Government?
The idea of self study
Immense pressure was laid on the concept of self study butto our surprise, we didn’t actually get any time for that. Initial months wentso smooth that even that calf which once got the CET admit card could actuallythink of passing the entrance exam – just 3-4 half an hour classes per dayfilled with tickling jokes and personal life tales of teachers. Things worsenedwhen the final one month was left with 80% syllabus yet to be touched. Morningclasses, evening classes, daytime classes, night classes, everything wasapplied. A frosty chilly morning with the post Fajr “Aurad-e-Fateh” in thebackground, wide empty streets, howling dogs and a lone student approachingtowards his success station, spending an average of 13 hours in a tuition perday and expecting to do self study- crazy ?
Inexperienced staff struggle
We were attracted to these institutes just for the sake ofsome highly experienced, senior and amazing teachers and this was the thirdthing to hit the rock bottom. Students, who were themselves entangled in someuniversity, struggling to complete their degree, were brought on experimentalbasis. Sharing the same age group, no student paid a heed to them andeventually the much nervous, confused and somewhat messed up teacher would endup spending more than half of the class scolding and controlling us. Thestruggle was so real with the inexperienced and young staff that for teaching 3subjects, we had 25 teachers. Surprising- right?
Birds of the same flock fly together
As the days passed by and the class 10th fever lowered,seriousness stepped in and we started realising that it was not only ourenthusiasm but our overseeing attitude that didn’t make us feel that we were apart of a 400-450 student flock caged in a suffocated room. We were unawarethat the Government has allowed only 60-70 students a batch, but what about theadministration and the people who have to inspect these places? An SMS ofelectricity failure in class was received when a surprise inspection fromofficials was expected. Who informed them about the ‘SURPRISE VISIT’? – seemslike a ‘Donun taraf ka jugaad’!!
There wasn’t any AC or any heating system in the class thatran on electricity. I guess it was to keep us hidden from the eyes(blindfolded) of the inspection team so that they don’t know what the actualroll is.
Celebrity-fan moments
A strong pillar of the campaign included the informationabout doubt clearing sessions. It was a real stress buster for the students asit seemed a bright ray of hope.”Ours is a 3-tier programme”, they said. TheFirst one included the things that were taught in the class and believe me itwas the only ‘Tyre’ which didn’t have a puncture.
The second one included the things which get missed out inthe class and are available in the form of study material.
The third and the most important is the points which getskipped at both places and shall be encountered in the test series.
The much awaited study material reached the students 2 yearsafter we had left the tuition and the amazing test series scenario has alreadybeen mentioned.
Doubts were more prominent than concepts and the ones whohad to clear them had already become celebrities who didn’t even show theirglimpse after the class was over.
The journey was about to end but we were still into it-confused and chaotic, not knowing what was happening and what was supposed tobe.
The irrefutable truth
The ultimate result of our performance in entrance exam wasno surprise according to what had happened, but it was a bolt from the blue formillions of dreams, rivers of emotions and thousands of parents who witnessedtheir children sacrifice their youth for this single cause.
There is a huge difference between a teacher and a tutor, aninstitution and a hub, and Parraypora has brought out the points ofdistinction. Thousands of young students, with millions of dreams and endlesslove and desire are misled after every entrance exam result. There is no areain the whole valley where at least 1 or 2 display boards are not featuring theselected students; but has anyone ever tried to know the reality behind each100 student list displayed by each coaching centre? With a roll of at least7000 students per year in one batch, are 100 students enough to make a coachingcentre a ‘Miracle Centre’? Statistics suggest that just 10% freshers qualifythe competitive exams in our valley. Does the credit of 2 year, 3 year and evena 4 year dropper who has given his blood and sweat for his studies go to thesecoaching centres? It is not the coaching centre which produces selections butthe tireless hard work and endless dedication of students.
A single student is displayed by at least 3 institutesmentioning him as- Classroom student,
DLP student, student who has just walked through their lane.
We people are being deceived and the most unfortunate partis that even after seeing every injustice done to us, we just shut our eyes andlet the termites powder our feelings, dreams, hopes and even money.
To add to this misery, the coaching industry has recentlyadded a new source of income and I guess this is for the first time we areseeing such a thing in our valley and that is selling of contact numbers andpersonal information of students to various career consultancies. I neverreceived an invitation from my institute about any doubt clearance or any extraclass, but from the past 1 week, on an average I get at least 4-5 messages and1-2 phone calls every day about getting admission abroad. This business of”manufacturing units of doctors and engineers” must be kept under check.
The mental trauma and emotional abuse has been going onsince years together and every time the victim is an innocent student. Fromdreaming of getting into AIIMS and IITs and finally ending up with studyingHistory or Literature, the struggle of students like me is real.
This is a public grievance and in this era where student andchild welfare is the most emphasised topic, the Government and authorities mustcheck these tuition centres and question them about what they are doing and howthey are deceiving students and parents.There should be a regular inspection of tuition centres about their intakecapacity, infrastructure, teaching faculty, timing and the standard of teaching(if possible, without any ‘donun taraf ka jugaad’)!