On entrance exams...

On the 7th of June 2015, thousands of students wrote the entrance exam for the prestigious JIPMER Medical College's MBBS admissions. Reportedly about 1.4 lakh students had applied amounting to Rs.14 crores (each applicant pays Rs.1000).. Out of this, Rs.10 crore goes to the consultancy firm which conducts the online examination and another may be Rs.2 crore as TA/DA to those who conduct the examination. The rest of the amount is a surplus for JIPMER. Likewise, thousands of students write entrance examinations every year and huge amounts are spent on the entrance examinations across India.. Different universities conduct their own entrance examinations and so also different institutions like the IITs, IISc, ISERs, AIPMT, AIIMS, apart from States conducting their own entrance examinations ...

If we had a uniform syllabus across the country, may be these different examinations are not required. We have every state formulating their own syllabus and even within the state, you have multiple standards. Till recently, Tamilnadu had Matriculation syllabus, State Board system, Anglo Indian System apart from CBSE, ICSE and what not? May be it is high time, we start thinking on this issue whee students across the country have different varying syllabus and for entering into any All India course like Engineering or Medical studies, the institutions have no other option to conduct their own qualifying entrance examinations.. But there is a huge industry thriving on the entrance examination business and like Education itself as a big industry, the entrance coaching also has become even a larger industry and we hear stories every day that there are definite linkage between question paper leaks and leading entrance coaching institutions..

Supposing we had a common educational framework with some scope for regional variations, then this could have solved the problems to a great extent. After all, science, mathematics, social sciences etc. are going to be same for all the states and if there was a common agreement on a common syllabus, then these varying systems would not create citizens of different standards and levels. May be then there is no need for having varying entrance examinations provided the teaching and the quality of conducting the examinations are kept at the highest levels possible. This reminds the mass copying being practiced in states like Bihar and other states.. In fact most of the private institutions also encourage malpractices in the examinations and the invigilators are bribed and cajoled and students are passed. This was all the more true in key professions like Education (B.Ed, M.Ed, D.T.Ed etc.) where the students once gets through the degrees goes on to become teachers who in turn will create substandard students damaging a whole new generation..  I know many teaches working in government as well as private colleges who can not handle English or even Tamil properly and their own levels of knowledge in these subjects highly questionable.. The interesting fact was that when the Government of Tamilnadu introduced the Teacher Eligibility Test (TET), majority of the so called Diploma and Degree holders in Education (Diploma in Teacher Education - D.T.Ed and the B.Ed ) failed to pass the tests. Now there are entrance coaching centres who will prepare the already qualified D.T.Ed and B.Ed degree holders to pass through the Teacher Eligibility Test .. Look at the irony of weird things and it seems we all accept these things with out questioning the basis problem of quality of education, quality of assessment at any point of time...

It is high time, that we start thinking about these things..
Signing off...

Waste, waste and waste???

Bahour is the rice bowl of Pondicherry. It is also a historical location where the Cholas used it as their Mandalam for the entire operations almost a millenium ago. Bahour has a good network of irrigation tanks and its associated channels which are the lifeline of the entire region.

But for the past couple of years, a lot undesirable things are happening here including sand mining in the Pennaiyar river, attempts to convert the water bodies into other uses, conversion of agricultural lands to real estate etc. There are also a couple of medical colleges, engineering colleges, B.Ed. colleges etc. which all have converted prime agricultural land into buildings and campuses cutting the drainage channels, polluting the whole area with their wastes and effluents etc.

Even more, even wastes from the neighbouring district of Cuddalore are also being dumped along the roads. These also include bio-medical waste and other toxics. The Mullodai road connecting the ECR to the Parikkalpet village, is also fully laden with huge heaps of waste which are also burnt sometimes creating huge pollution in the area.

What you see here is the huge waste heap dumped on the Kannikoil Bahour road adjacent to an Industrial unit. These huge heap would leach all the toxics inside and the leachate would get into the adjacent drainage channel which joins the Mullodai drainage channel and could have a very bad impact on the entire area.