Education over the years in TN - Part 2

Click Part - 1 to read the first part, before continuing with Part-2.

The education system changed, but did it really meet our expectations?

As years passed by, the first change came in the form of removal of entrance examinations for the admission to colleges (medical and engineering). 

I was really shocked, as entrance exams are a means to test the competitive ability of the students and the system wants to kill the competitive spirit at the very beginning of the student’s career.

The worst part about the selection criteria is, when two or more students have the same criteria in every qualification (cut-off marks for the various subjects as prescribed) which the system expects, the allocation of seat is done on the basis of Date of Birth.

Is this a criterion to decide on the future of a student? Is it a sin that student2 was born after Student1?

As usual protests erupted to reinstate the entrance exam. The system had its counter-argument stating that the rural students do not get the opportunity and same education as that of urban students and this is the better way to create equal opportunities for them.

Whose mistake is this, if students in urban area gets more opportunity than rural?

Just because few people in the system are lazy and do not want to take efforts to develop rural areas, will they start adopting backward integration?


The protest fell on deaf ears as the entrance exam pattern was completely abolished.


Is this a positive change??? Never, not even in the slightest of my dreams. 

The odds did not stop at the entrance exams. As years rolled by, change was brought in the syllabus being suggested to school children from 1^st standard to 12^th standard. The syllabus was decreased when compared to the previous years, thus impairing the roots of education.

This consideration was done based on the fact that equal education should be provided across the state, whether it be rural or urban area. 
If equal opportunity has to be provided, why not the infrastructure be provided to rural areas and improve the quality of education being provided to them? This shows the inconsistency of the system to function properly. 


This has taken away the opportunity for the students to learn the basics in their respective subjects. Even though people know that these drastic steps decrease the quality of education than improving, still they do not give a damn to it.

The worst part of this type of education is the lack of practical knowledge. Our students have bookish knowledge and the question papers are nothing but a repetitive of questions, which has been taught in class. Even a slight deviation or twist in the questions, would make the students to score less marks or even fail, which indicates how the education has ruined the thinking capabilities of the students.

The fundamentals should be instilled in the minds right from the young age itself. Not all people are born creative. It is their environment that makes them to think creative. One part of this environment is the education. 
Our education system is framed in such a way that “Out of the box thinking” is discouraged right from their childhood.

I am not against the upliftment of education in rural areas. I am here to support the improvements that need to be done in rural areas to catch up with the urban areas. The system should think of ways to implement an improved education system in rural areas in a phased manner, rather than degrading the quality of the education as a whole.

With an education system as such existing in the state, can we expect the future of the students to be good enough to cope up with the challenges?

Education over the years in TN - Part 1

Having seen the change in education system over the years in Tamil Nadu, I got that inner urge to write this blog.

It was the year 2002. We have completed 12^th standard and there were a bunch of guys (including me), who wanted to pursue their career in medicine. We prepared for our Tamil Nadu entrance exams and due to additional awareness, we got to know about the existence of medical colleges across India such as AFMC, AIMS, JIPMER. As any other aspirants would do, we applied for those exams and even bought books to prepare for those exams.

We were very confident enough to excel well in those exams, as we considered the syllabus for biology in our education system to be vast. 

To our dismay, we were not even able to answer 10% of the questions mentioned in those books. The syllabus given in those books looked like French & German to us, as the biology syllabus in those books was way ahead of what we studied in our state syllabus.

There, we realized the difference between the real (education outside TN) and imaginary (education in TN) world. What we consider as too much of syllabus in TN is nothing but a meagre syllabus for a student outside TN. Still we prepared and wrote those exams, but never cleared any of those, as “hinky pinky ponky” technique never helps you in the real world.

In marketing, we have a famous term named “Moment of Truth” – The time when the customer forms his opinion about the firm, when he interacts with the products of the firm. Moment of Truth for us is the interaction with the medical exams of the real world and we realized that we were “Kinathu thavalai (Frog in a well – A frog inside a well thinks that there doesn’t exist a world beyond the well)” till then.

Once the results for the entrance exams were out, we faced the truth that it is time to change the ambition of your life. This, not only happened with us, but with many other fellow students, who appear for 12^th standard exams every year. We did not had the guts to study for an additional year to prepare for the exams again, as it is considered a curse, as every other person whom you can find, whether educated or not, would advice you saying that you have wasted a year. 

We expected the mindset of the people to change over the years, thereby giving rays of hope to the education system.

As expected our education system changed, but ………..


Click Part-2 to read the continuation.

Dam999 - Who has the final say???

“Dam, what 999???”, was my first reaction when I heard the name – Dam999.

I was more shocked, when I heard that the dam is located nowhere other than the border of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. After surfing the web, realized that Dam 999 is none other than our Mullaiperiyar dam.

How much ignorant I am to not to have known that this dam is also called Dam 999? Not only me, there are my fellow citizens, who are also not aware of this fact. Isn’t it disheartening to see that we are not aware of our very own resources?

In 1886, when British ruled India, a lease agreement was signed between Maharaja of Travancore and Secretary of State for Madras (as it was called before Independence) for a period of 999 years for irrigation works. Thus, the dam obtained the name – Dam999. A fully functional dam was built in 1895, thereby benefitting both the state of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The dam is built as an epicentre to the five districts of kerala namely, Idukki, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Alappuzha and Trishur. These districts constitute a population of nearly 35 lakhs. As per the construction, the water flowing towards west from the Periyar and Mullaiyar river is stored in the Mullai periyar dam, thereby creating a Periyar reservoir. 

From the reservoir, the water has been diverted east, thereby enabling it to enter Tamil Nadu, through a tunnel, which would join Vaigai. The main objective of building the dam is to improve the irrigation facilities in Tamil Nadu, by facilitating a better water supply all throughout the year for the agricultural lands in these areas.

When the constitution of India was formulated at the time of Independence, the free nation cancelled all the agreements that were signed during the British rule. Rules changed and new rules were framed to get new agreements in place. 

The lease agreement of Dam 999 was also cancelled and the efforts taken to bring a new agreement in place were never heeded. Having been at loggerheads for ages, an agreement was finally signed in 1970, after failed attempts during 1958, 1960, and 1969 by the two states.

As per the agreement, Tamil Nadu would pay Rs. 30 per acre for the land being used and Rs. 12/KW/hr for the electricity being generated from the dam. Tamil Nadu has successfully paid all the dues till date.

What made it so special about this dam to hit the headlines?

A dispute has erupted between both the states for several decades regarding the stability & water-level in the dam. Even after set-up of so many committees and intervention of the state and central government or even the Supreme Court, a consensus has not been reached till date.

The state of Tamil Nadu wants the level of water storage in the dam to increase from 136ft to 142ft, which is being opposed by Kerala.

Is it dangerous to increase the water level by 1.82mt (6ft)?

Are the low mathematical figures of 1.82 or 6 has got huge hidden meaning in it?

The answer lies with Nature and the Keralite’s are acting accordingly. The dam has been built 100 years ago using the raw materials of yester years, which means stability of the dam is at stake. 

Also, the Centre for Earth Sciences have mentioned that the dam is in the weak zone and an earth quake of magnitude higher than six in Richter scale is possible in this area. Any natural disaster like this would lead to the development of fissures and cracks in the dam.

As the saying goes, “A chain is as strong as its weakest link”, the dam would stand, as long as these cracks are able to hold till repair work is done. The earthquake could be compared to a ticking time bomb, which could create a mass destruction leading to the destruction of the districts nearby, thereby posing a serious threat to the lives of 35lakh people living in this region.

Isn’t there any alternative to the loggerhead?

A proposal has been suggested to build an alternate dam in the same site, which could still meet the demands of Tamil Nadu. Even though the construction of the new dam takes time, it looks like the best alternative at hand right now.

The TN government has its own concerns saying that a new dam would not fulfil its water demands, as the water flow might be less than what is assured. This has led to a standstill in the activities related to the dam.

On the other hand, Kerala government wants a new dam to be built on the same site for the protection of its people in the five adjacent districts, before the collapse of the existing dam.

This issue is one among the hot topics being discussed in the current winter session of parliament. One of the latest developments is the request for CISF by TN to prevent any unexpected sabotage to the dam by the miscreants.

What we notice is just the tip of the iceberg. There are lot many hidden issues, which we are not aware of. It is better to reach a consensus as soon as possible before a tragedy of mass scale occurs.

I would like to mention a quote by a famous person, "If everyone remembers a tragedy, then what is the issue in taking precautions to prevent such tragedy in future?"