India is the second most populous nation in the world with a burgeoning section of its youth looking for employment opportunities. A dream career in the civil services, medicine or engineering attracts the majority of students belonging to the middle class or the lower economic stratum.
A highly competitive environment is created among students to crack the NEET, IIT and UPSC examinations. They toil for years to clear these, but with limited seats and larger numbers of students, a majority of them are not selected.
Peer pressure, less pondered dreams, expectations of parents and a fear of ending as a nobody traps them in the quagmire of success and failure. A belief prevails in society that a person who is not in one of these ‘dream’ jobs is less human than the selected ones.
Success in Indian society is measured by the name and fame that a person acquires rather than the creativity, interests or moral personality. Hence, a lot of students feel dejected and keep trying in these examinations till they are completely exhausted of the budding energy found in youth. It appears that selection after toiling hard for years in competitive examinations will open the doors of happiness forever.
For example, in the UPSC’s civil service examinations, people keep trying for four to five years or more to get selected as there are many attempts at your disposal. The question that arises here is whether these competitions actually bring the best out of any student in India. Is competition killing creativity in India’s youth?
Competitive examinations in India are more goal-oriented than process-oriented. Students work for results and are deeply attracted to the name associated with selection in these examinations. One can easily find photos of toppers pasted across the lanes of coaching-wallas in Old Rajinder Nagar in Delhi. Every student hopes to be a poster boy today or tomorrow.
In this way, the interests and creativity of a student are replaced by the dream of selection in these examinations. They do not ponder on the process in which they will get into once the fuss associated with examinations is over. The process may not be interesting to them as there are no end-points or goals associated with the process.
A doctor has to treat patients, a civil servant has to do public service finally after being selected. However, with the focus restricted to goals, a failure shatters the lives of thousands of students. The growing incidence of student suicides reflect the thought process linked to examinations.
One has to understand that it is only an examination created by us humans and not the will of god. The government needs people with certain skills in certain jobs. If you are not selected in one examination that does not mean your life is gone. There is something better for you waiting there and the only thing needed is to keep looking, trying and being useful. Success to people have come in the most unexpected ways and not always in a career which they aspired from childhood.
There is no dream so big that cannot be torn down; they are created by us. One should not become a prisoner of one’s own thoughts but accept failures as a part of life and move on. There is no need to get attached to a certain dream that takes away the happiness and beauty of life away from you. These material aspects of life are indeed important, but not more than life itself. One needs to give a best shot and move ahead rather than treating selection in examinations as key to all the pleasures of life.
The creativity of a student cannot be allowed to die in clearing these examinations. The glitter associated with certain careers needs to fade away. Every person, irrespective of the field, is playing an important role in building society. The youth should not blind themselves in dreams that are material in nature. One has to utilise and fuel the energy inside and should never give up.
The point is to keep changing your dreams and making them more natural and less artificial. A certain examination or career cannot define your capabilities. It is you who have the strength to do so.
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