Impractical Knowledge

Yesterday, finally my engineering first semester exams got over and I took off some time to sit down and analyze the list of valuable things I learned, the skills I developed and the practical knowledge I gained during the semester. Frankly, I was not surprised at all to find the list empty after the analysis. In the span of 145 days of my journey as an engineer, I appeared for around 26 tests (including 8 class tests, 12 sessional tests, and 6 university exams), 10 practical exams (including 5 internal practical exams and 5 external practical exams), and completed around 10 assignments . I hope you get the point. After appearing for so many tests, practical exams and completing so many assignments I literally gained nothing. I did not learn anything new nor developed any real-life skills. So the question that arises here is, "What do these tests and exams really test?" Though I'm not completely sure about the answer I can firmly say that skills and knowledge are no

Earlier this month, the All India Council for Technical Education(AICTE) made the decision to shut down 300 private engineering colleges all over India due to less than 30% seat enrollment for five consecutive years. It is quite possible that many of these colleges may be converted to science colleges or vocational education institutes. The decision will be finalized by AICTE by December end and the colleges would be expected to stop admission processes from the 2018-19 session. There are around 3,000 private engineering colleges in India, but more than 90% of them fail to provide any quality education . They function more like factories producing unemployable engineers each year. Providing the students with practical knowledge and development of skills are given no importance. This is the reason why I feel that this decision could have a positive outcome overall. The Positive Side As an engineering student myself, frustrated with the education system and its im

The following pictures are examples of some playgrounds in the United States and England: Baseball park in America Football field in England And the following picture is an example of a typical playground in India: Now, a question might arise in your mind, "How is this street a playground?" Well if you are an Indian, I guess you already know the answer to that question. For those unaware of the issue, there is huge lack of good, playable playgrounds in India and the ones present are already overcrowded with kids and far from the vicinity of the majority of the kids. So, it is the time that we need more playgrounds in India and here are 7 reasons why we need more playgrounds in India. 1. Streets are not meant for sports : Streets are constructed for vehicles and passengers to travel from one place to another and not for sports. Playing any sport on a street compromises the safety of both the players and the travelers. It can distract or disturb the

Did you know that  a student commits suicide every hour in India ? Not a statistic to be proud of, right!! In the year 2014, around 2403 students committed suicide with ' Failure in Examination ' as the reason. And, this is just a fraction of the number of students who fall into depression , stress , and anxiety due to our fear-based education system. As a full-time student myself for the past 16 years, I get frustrated a lot when I see such headlines of students committing suicides due to academic pressure and failure in exams in the newspaper regularly. So, I decided to write a post on this topic today to highlight the reasons behind this statistic and figure out some solutions to this problem. I remember when I was a student studying in Class IX when one of my friends who had failed in most of the subjects told me that he felt he was a worthless loser and was wasting his parents' money and wished he could jump off the fourth floor of the school. Back