Cram Junkies
I am not familiar with a Korean cram school equivalent in India though the unscrupulous coaching centers come pretty close. That said, the cram school sounds like torture that even Indian kids don’t go through and that is saying a lot. When the stakes are so incredibly high, often the end justifies the means - be it by cramming without understanding, analysis or reflection or by obtaining “valuable suggestions” from a leaked IIT entrance exam paper. The end as it turns out, is not the education itself but scoring a coveted seat in an elite university.
Irrespective of the means, fair (cramming) or foul(access to leaked questions), the aspirants to these institution have to work horrendously hard because everyone else in the fray has the same advantages that they have and the acceptance rates of the colleges in question are among the lowest in the world. It takes woefully little to get eliminated and have your life’s course altered for ever - or at least that is how these kid are made to believe.
So after giving every ounce of themselves to the brutal system, and snagging the college admission, very few are left with any energy or enthusiasm for the education itself - the relentless pursuit of excellence ironically ends right at the point of entry. While the entrance exams are like sprints to the marathon of actual education and learning that will follow it, most are too exhausted to even remain in the running.
On the contrary, the average kids without the capacity or ambition to cram and slog their way into top-ranking colleges end up doing quite well where ever end up after being rejected by many if not all elite colleges. They actually learn something in college and are better prepared for the life that lays ahead. Most importantly, since they never depended on crutches like coaching centers to get them in, they go through their academic lives and after much more self-reliant and confident. Having learned to swim without a life-jacket and survived they are the ready for the treacherous waters that they must navigate outside the cocoon of college and university.
It is common to see bright and talented high-schoolers dissipate over four years into mediocrity at engineering school. They recover from the tortures of entrance exam preparations for the first year only to discover that the education for which they had nearly lost their lives and sanity was way over-rated. They slide into the trough of delusion and disinterest only to recover in the final year when they are getting ready to find a job.
The cram mode sets in once again. Interview and screening test questions are quarried, group discussion topics are foraged and final sememster dissertations are bloated and polished with plagiarized material.After living in a daze for four years and not having acquired more than a smattering of understanding of the subjects that were taught in that period, these “meritorious” students scheme and scam their way into their first job and that probably sets the tone for the rest of their professional lives.
It is no wonder then that they are notoriously inept at managing time and priorities, applying a disciplined approach to learning anything new, putting together a coherent presentation, displaying a common sense approach to problem-solving, being able to grow with slowly acquired on the job experience. All their adult lives they have absorbed only when under tremendous pressure to do so. Therefore, the 12-14 hour working days (weekends often included) and the lack of creativity and innovation. Since there is nothing in the real world that remotely resembles a cram school or coaching shop, it often becomes necessary to simulate the vibe just to be able to survive.
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