Bad Investment (standard:non fiction, 644 words)
Author: Juggernaut	Added: Mar 29 2013	Views/Reads: 2625/1841	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
In a country like India, the money spent in millions on courses to prepare for entry tests into professional schools is better spent elsewhere like improving the badly needed infra-stucture.

Bad Investment 

Subba Rao 

In India, admissions at professional colleges in the field of 

medicine and engineering went up sky high. The numbers were mind 

boggling.  This is good news. Now the schools to prep the students for 

standardized tests for admission into professional colleges turned into 

a big business, in one southern state it is around 100  million dollar 

business. This is lot of money particularly in a country like India 

with low per capita income and poverty.  This money is not coming out 

of government treasury, it all coming straight from the parents' 

pocket.  The parents eager to help their kids to get good ranking in 

qualifying tests spend their hard earned money amounting to millions. 

The teaching centers train the students to cram test material 

to get good scores. Students were not academically benefited at all 

through expanding their original talent or critical thinking.  If the 

professional colleges choose to ignore the standardized test scores and 

use the high school scores as the basis for admission, the quality of 

students admitting into their school won't change a bit. Data show that 

high school grades are as good indicators as scores in standardized 

tests in evaluating the students' academic ability. The standardized 

tests instituted in recent past as an additional tool to evaluate the 

high school students is nothing short of a business plan to make money. 

The argument that not all high school scores are equal and 

standardized tests would level the field sounds rational but in realty 

there is no end to what extent or level we can standardize the 

evaluations. The curriculum at the professional and graduate schools 

shall automatically filter out the students not suitable to the 

program.  Even if some students beat the system to graduate they filter 

out at the work place anyway.  History tells that the standardized test 

score before the admission has no bearing on the quality of student at 

the end of the graduation. The Money spent in millions by the parents 

is a total waste. I don't get it. 

100 million dollars currently spent at the training schools are 

better spent elsewhere say in buying bonds to finance projects to 

improve basic requirements for healthy living. The raw sewer in many 

towns and cities in India is not treated at all. The sewer is allowed 

to seep into the ground underneath each house through septic tank 

system. The contaminated rain water and raw sewer in open drains does 


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