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16th August, 2009

Mr. Minister
State Education dept
Government of Maharashtra


Dear Mr. Minister,

Subject: The war against the youth and learning.

Recently some articles in the newspapers have brought to my knowledge that the State Government is, or at least appears to be, very interested in improving the standard of the present CBSE syllabus so that it comes close to, if not reach, the standard of its counterpart, state board (MSB) syllabus in schools in Maharashtra. What a noble thought I say! I was only wondering how denigrating and disparaging it must be for the students presently studying in the schools following the CBSE pattern and how proud I feel when I think of myself as one of the fresh pieces of shit that MSB shat.

The CBSE and ICSE boards stress too much on the importance of understanding and reproducing the understood; how useless, senseless and wasteful of the child's abilities of mugg... I mean, memorize and reproduce the text verbatim. Pedantic knowledge is bliss, ain’t it? This reminds me of a, in my opinion, related issue of recent cases in plagiarism among Indian graduate students studying abroad. What a non-issue really! If those universities could just take a leaf out of the MSB's book, they would know what true learning really is. These universities would then learn to be more respectful of the student's ability to find the exact answers to difficult questions without actually working out solutions. That is GENIOUS!!! No surprises here if we find that those students come from the same lump of royal shit that I come from. Because we have been taught exactly how to reproduce text without understanding and without even as much as a thought for the original author of the manuscript, let alone his/her mention. An acknowledgment to the author certainly sounds too far fetched, doesn't it?

Another pressing issue that I feel needs mention is that of English language being/not being the compulsory language. If only, I wonder, if only I had been taught in school with Marathi as the first language, I certainly wouldn’t have given you the trouble of arranging for a translator to decipher this text. Recently I read another article that spoke at length on how China would love to break-up India and how easy it would be for it. Well, indeed it would be easy. But, why take the trouble at all? The issue of usage of a regional language over a national language and an international language in itself has become a wedge to separate the two sides. Probably China can already taste blood. As far as students of MSB are concerned, the first question that would be asked is, “which language will help us score more marks?” Their support or opposition to any side would depend on the answer to that. Lovely!

Education in Maharashtra has so much to offer. Engineers, for instance, learn to fix the very equipments (artifacts) that are required to conduct experiments. That gives them practical knowledge and the confidence to handle those primitive accoutrements if they ever have time to or get a chance to handle them. For medical students the learning is of a different kind and yet another kind is the learning of students pursuing commerce and arts courses. So much thought went in determining the content of the courses when they were first introduced that a revision is seldom required. My automobile engineering professor informed my class once during a lecture that before the last revision the subject was called vehicle engineering. And that sums up the entire revision. Foolish are those who go abroad to seek better education, aren’t they?

I wish I could maintain a linearity of thought in this letter but the variety of work of the state education ministry has not allowed me to do so. The state education department has a knack of coming out of the hiding every time it feels threatened by the CBSE board and court orders on petitions filed by parents of kids studying in the CBSE board schools. That’s when all the decision-making happens and that’s when new government resolutions are announced and they range from issues concerning greater control over syllabus of schools following other boards to their fee structure and even appointment of teachers. That’s variety of the order that probably no other ministry can boast of having.

I wish I could come up with some more things to say to you in gratitude but I have decided to sign off here after it took me a good 5 days to even think so much. Probably I need to go back to my school. Who knows, I might find a letter in one of the textbooks that I am able to use word for word.

Thanking you

Yours truly,

A grateful student