The Circus Called Education
Congratulations, India: You’ve perfected turning knowledge into commodity, dreams into collateral and classrooms into crime scenes
India calls itself the “Vishwaguru”, the world teacher. Yet classrooms collapse, teachers are demoralized, and students die under stress—literally.
Millions of degrees churn out every year, but employers laugh at their unemployability.
We have IITs and IIMs, the islands of excellence — but the other 90% of universities are degree shops (selling certificates like potato chips).
Graduates can recite Shakespeare but can’t fix a power outage at home.
The “demographic dividend”?
A cruel joke if youth are stressed, unskilled, and mentally scarred.
Welcome to the land where diplomas are currency and curiosity is tax-deductible.
Rote Factories: Mug, Vomit, Forget
ASER 2023: Half of Class 5 students can’t read a Class 2 text. Yet exams reward memorization, not understanding.
UPSC Case Study: Millions memorize arcane facts; <1% succeed. The rest are broken, frustrated, unemployable. Creativity is murdered before it even has a chance to breathe.
Innovation? Grim.
Nobel prizes? Scarce.
India rewards parrots, not pioneers.
We train humans to vomit information, not digest life.
Two Indias, One Classroom
Rural Schools: Under trees, no toilets, sometimes no teachers.
Urban Elite Schools: Robotics labs, AC classrooms, “global exposure” trips.
Rajasthan 2023: A Dalit boy beaten to death for touching a water pot. Schools should liberate—they often perpetuate violence with a syllabus in hand.
Learning to read is optional; learning to survive caste hierarchies is mandatory.
Loot in the Name of Education
Private colleges, especially in Medicine and Engineering, are family empires.
Capitation fees? Crores.
Maharashtra 2016: ₹1 crore for an MBBS seat. Merit optional. Money mandatory.
Coaching Mafia: Kota alone saw 27 student suicides in 2023. Notes scream despair: “I can’t take this anymore.”
Nothing says patriotism like converting teenage trauma into profit margins.
Curriculum Dilution and Privatization
NEP 2020: PR glitter, weak funding. UGC Math 2023: “Academic suicide”—graduates may know less than today’s Class 12 students. NCERT textbooks: Science cut, Mughal history erased, ideology injected.
Paper leaks (UP, Bihar, NEET 2023) destroy futures. The government is digging education’s grave while celebrating stamps, coins, and slogans.
Curriculum doubles as a political pamphlet—bring your own propaganda spectacles.
NEET Suicides: The Mental Death Trap
Tamil Nadu 2023: 13 NEET aspirants committed suicide; 119 deaths over eight years. Families pay lakhs; students memorize, vomit, forget; system applauds survivors while ignoring corpses in corridors.
“The exam doesn’t just filter talent—it filters sanity, hope, and occasionally, life itself.”
NEET: Where ambition goes to die quietly under a syllabus heavier than any coffin.
Privatization of Medical Colleges
Andhra Pradesh is converting 17 government medical colleges into PPPs (Public Private Partnerships); Telangana follows suit. Public institutions starved; private empires thrive.
“Why educate everyone when you can educate only those who can pay—and call it reform?”
“PPP: privatize profits, socialize failures, pretend it’s innovation.” “Medical degrees are now luxury goods; health for the poor is a footnote.”
NEET crushes mental health; PPPs crush access. Only the affluent survive; the rest are collateral damage.
Degrees Without Jobs
1.5 million engineers annually; only 20% employable.
MBAs flood streets; call centers and gig jobs await the rest. Brain drain empties campuses.
“A degree now guarantees debt and disappointment, not dignity or work.”
Teachers: Exploited and Ignored
UP “Shiksha Mitras”: ₹10k–12k/month, clerical duties, election work.
Teaching? Optional.
When teachers perform as clerks, students graduate as zombies.
Timeline of Blunders
- 1950s–60s: Colonial rote culture preserved.
- 1991: Liberalization: education becomes business.
- 2000s: Coaching culture explodes—graveyards of teenage dreams.
- 2010: RTE Act—half-hearted, underfunded.
- 2014–2019: Textbooks politicized.
- 2020: NEP 2020—PR hides privatization.
- 2023: UGC math dilution; NEET leaks.
- 2025: Stamps, coins, AP/Telangana medical college privatization.
Eight decades of mismanagement, and counting, with applause from the gallery.
Solutions: If We Still Care
- Kill Rote Learning: Real-world projects, curiosity over memorization.
- Stop the Loot: Regulate private colleges, outlaw capitation fees.
- Save the Curriculum: Strengthen math, science, humanities.
- Link Education with Skills: Coding, AI, climate literacy.
- Empower Teachers: Hire, train, pay well.
- Fund Public Education: Minimum 6% of GDP; classrooms over selfies.
Implementation optional, outrage mandatory.
Government: Guardian or Gravedigger?
Currently: gravedigger-in-chief—starving institutions, blessing mafias, sabotaging curricula, prioritizing ideology.
Vote for slogans; pay for degrees; blame the syllabus for everything else.
People: Stop Worshipping Marks
Parents chase 90% marks; society equates success with ranks. Demand quality education with the same rage we demand cricket victories.
Marks over minds—our national pastime.
Conclusion: A Nation Eating Its Own Future
From Kota suicides to NEET leaks, capitation fees, PPP privatization, India is destroying its future. Degrees without skills, classrooms without teachers, public institutions starved, private mafias thriving—national self-sabotage.
Unchecked, the demographic dividend will explode into a demographic disaster. Millions of frustrated, unemployable youth, degrees in hand, despair in hearts.
Congratulations, India: You’ve perfected turning knowledge into commodity, dreams into collateral and classrooms into crime scenes.
[The writer, Dr. Tata Sivaiah, is Founder & National President of Mahatma Jyotirao Phule & Kranthijyothi Savitribai Phule Educational Circle]
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