Engineers were there and were made not now but for long and thus is not anything newfound and the buildings, bridges and machinery they built stand tall even now. But nowadays, the stream of Engineering subject has seen sea change in the sense that not only are there too much of anxiety, stress, pressure and what not among the students to crack the joint entrance examinations and for that purpose right from the stage a child passes out from primary school the time comes when their stationery is added with very bulk books of physics, chemistry, mathematics, what they call PCM, a pre-requisite for Engineering and requisite lab materials. Nowadays, the quantity of bulk books has enormously increased owing to the fact that now the books are computerized printing which has made it very easier to print unlike earlier time when book publishing was a rather difficult task with manual efforts involved.
The more technology of book printing has advanced so has the size and number of pages increased in books disregard of the fact that students are perplexed as to which content is important and which are rubbish-like. Apart from printing and selling of bulk books, the course of engineering has become more of a source of income for the many coaching institutes and home tuition makers found flourishing in many lanes in cities and towns across the country. More so, even the tuition classes be it in groups or home visit types, the tutors insist on completing the full syllabus from beginning to end just like any recognized school does, instead of just clearing the doubts of student, thus almost running a parallel school. This is probably because if only doubts in questions are cleared, those tutors will run out of business which might be their main source of living.
To speak about the amount of fees charged by those coaching institutes and tutors, the less said the better. The expenditure runs to lakhs of rupees in big coaching Institutes and many students are deprived of getting admitted in such institutes and for home tutors it is almost Rs. 600 per one hour of class. Once upon a time, taking tuition was considered a bad concept and was in fact the children taking tuition were frowned upon and even the children or their parents were very much reluctant to disclose the information that their ward is taking tuition as the tuition taking children were considered some kind of weak students or unintelligent-type during those period. People felt ashamed to tell someone about their children getting tuition in those times. But now, the situation is altogether different. Taking tuition has become something like a fashion statement and a show of affluence and now it is the other way round in the sense that it is shameful during this period for a parent if their children is not taking any kind of tuition in this competitive age. Even the teachers in schools recommend tuition for their pupil making it easier for them to do their teaching jobs and put the onus or responsibility on tuition teachers. There are some big institutes flourishing with lots of branches across any cities claiming to prepare students for Engineering, medical, chartered accountant, management, civil services and what not.
The tuition institutes for the Board classes such as 10th or 12th class almost run parallel schools making the children very difficult to cope with both school schedule and tuition institutes schedule both equally giving class and homework, thereby the students trying for engineering or some such stream are nowadays found to be not only calling on their health or weakening their eye sight and losing good sound sleep but even seem little absent minded as continuously they are staring at the various mind-boggling formulas, equations and questions and related answers. Added to that is the pressure developed by parents themselves, as no parent want their children to go in for any stream lesser than Engineering or medicine among science stream and a chartered account or an MBA for commerce stream and Civil Services mostly if from humanity stream.
Nowadays, the trend is such that parents send their children to such coaching institutes beginning even when the child is in 6th or 8th class to prepare them for future in Engineering or Medical fields. Parents forget their own past and they have high expectations from their children and in that process indirectly spoil their mental and physical development and most of such children never experience their young age and from childhood directly land into old age not knowing how the years passed by within the clouds and clusters of bulky books pertaining to school education and to the large stock of books and study materials provided by the coaching institutes. Not only are the coaching institutes and tutors whether home visit or in groups in tuition places are after making money, instead now the new trend is establishment of counselling institutes who helps train students for the various entrance tests to universities across the country consequent to the formulation of the New Education Policy and such counselling institutes apart from providing training in logical ability, numerical aptitude, current affairs, etc. also assist in filling the requisite university admission forms which are tricky instead and not an easy catch for everyone to understand and fill out.
Now, in this pandemic period, the situation is all the more gruesome in the sense that sometime it is offline classes and most of the time online classes thereby further putting strain on eyes due to continued staring at laptop or mobile or any other devices. At least it can easily be said that physical activities have almost been reduced to zero particularly among children aiming to cut through Engineering, medical or such other high profile careers and for them the concept of enjoyment, they might ask, what is that?
