A Mere Business!!!

I remember reading a SMS once it ran as follow…

 

“If I throw a stone in the streets of my city it will surely hit a dog, but if I throw a stone in the streets of Bangalore it will surely hit a software engineer”… well when I first read the SMS I was actually laughing bec I wasn’t that keen in seeing the truth in that msg. I received that msg some four to five before. Today, I would like to add more to that SMS a little… “If I walk in the streets of my VILLAGE I used to see fertile lands, but if I walk today I see Engineering colleges”… Oxford, JCET, JJCET, Saranathan, SASTRA, Indiraganesan, Rajiv Gandhi, MIET, Mookambigai, Jayaram, Paavai, Dhanalakshmi, Mahalakshmi, Vekateswara, Jeppair, St.Joseph’s, Sathyabama, VIT, PSG, VKS, Rajalaskshmi, Angalamman, Andal, Amrita (these are just to name some of them) thinking what are all these well, if you’re a Tamilian you might be knowing what are all these. Well this blog of mine is for others…

I heard my grandmom telling her friend that I wish one of my grandchildren would become an engineer. Luckily, I didn’t want to be hit by any stone!! So I escaped in this gamble. This Gamble which is played in broad day light, which is legalised, which surely promises one victory, which is played in every nook and corner of our state, which gives employment to many ( here I mean any underground dealers who get employed in this gamble) ... The list never ends. Well not to drift away from our topic, I asked my friend once during her engineering counselling for Anna Univ’s college prospectus which gives us a list of engineering colleges… you wouldn’t be surprised to know that there were more than 600 Engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu alone. Let’s just make a simple calculation 300 engineering colleges * 500 students who pass out every year from these colleges … 1.5 lakh students who get an engineering degree. Well let me make it clear that it’s just half the lot. Scrolling back to these colleges every college claims to hold a rightful certificate to run their colleges… GOK (God Only Knows!!) whether they do, but im sure every engineering college has under construction buildings, air buses, so called labs, classrooms with windows with no glasses, separate hostel for boys and gals which provides water once in two days, food which would make at least one fall sick once a month.

This once a month issue is not only for students falling sick but also for one more important issue which you wouldn’t have guessed about. Every Wednesday, The Hindu’s Opportunities has atleast one full page ad stating –WANTED ha ha ha not in the police station but in engineering colleges, yes professors, asst. professors, lectures, asst. lectures, why! Even principals (lol think even they’ll fall sick seeing this gamble). Some engineering colleges even run for years without proper faculty. But who cares about all these every student is only worried about whether he/she will be placed at the end of his/her course. I was just thinking what would one do in his/her work space if they weren’t even taught the basics properly. Why’s that one doesn’t actually think about how well he understand his/her subject rather they are more worried about what he/she would do after his/her degree.  

The answer is very simple. It just runs like this, were the gamble actually begins. Your relative’s son/daughter would have studied in an x college and got an x engineering degree and would have got placed in some MNC and would earn around 20k excluding perks. There, now you see yourself eager to earn 20k or more when you walk out of college. You start looking out for colleges which offer engineering courses or you end up looking out for the same college where you relative’s child studied. The x college would have advertised in almost all possible forms of media, giving you a whole picture of how their college looks works well and even sucks which at first you ignore the latter. Only when you walk into the college you realise that they don’t need you grades but its your currency they look for. With a cloud above your head showing 20 k that you would be earning after you leave the college and you end paying up (the so called fees which includes the donation which would be in lakhs, apart from that let me now clarify about the employment opp which I had spoken about before. If you like a course in an x college you can book it like booking ticket in a movie hall, yup this is were the colleges earn their money and there are umpteen number of secret services working for it). Huh! It just struck me once I saw a man who was going to admit his son in a college; he asked the management only one question. Well this is it… WILL MY SON BE PLACED IN HIS 3RD YR ITSELF… if such an educated man like him doesn't question the management about the faculties or the facilities the college provides how can one expect an uneducated to do it. When you pay in lakhs to get a degree a mere human mind only thinks about earning it back rather than thinking about he should get the knowledge for what he had paid for.

Well ask the govt why so many engineering colleges? Their reply would be that everyone should be able to get an admission. Huh, did they ever notice that every year there’s an increase in the number of engineering colleges which they actually want, and it’s directly proportional to the number of vacant seats in the colleges. This is also proportional to the number of unemployed. 

Not a single moment has I felt that I missed being an engineer not because I have an aversion for Engineers but it’s the aversion that I have for the way THEY treat education as A Mere Business.