By Aidon Bond James
A scary statistic for you: once every 90 minutes an Indian student attempts to commit suicide. What drives a person so the brink of taking their own life? Mental illness, family problems, even a bad break-up…all reasons in the context of suicide, but imagine throwing yourself off a 3rd floor dorm room balcony as a result of failing an exam? What drives students to perform these drastic measures?
In my opinion it has something to do with the “programmed lives” that these students live. Children are born to fulfil the legacies of their parents and many Asian parents push their children to overachieve. They are not happy with a report card that says 94%…they want one that says 99%, they are do not want their kids to learn twinkle-twinkle little star on the violin, they want them to perform Mendelssohn’s violin concerto in E minor on stage before they reach the age of 9. As these children are so young and polite, they dare not disagree to work as hard as they solemnly can.
By the time they reach adolescences they only know one style of living, so they carry on doing the same, into university. But this is not university as you and I know it, it’s a whole different ball game. Take India for an example, the majority of college entrants study Engineering, Medicine, Nursing or Commerce.
There is no point in listing all the differences between college here and college there, it is far easier to simply say that Indian colleges resemble Irish secondary schools. Many universities insist on students wearing uniforms and impose strict curfews as to when students can freely roam the campus.
There are a number of large famous Indian colleges and Universities that cater for all degrees, and every year they roll out hundred’s of thousand’s of young graduates, but they also lose thousands of students to suicide every year.
In short, they are doing some things extremely well, but also doing other things extremely wrong. Where does it all go wrong? It could have something to do with the fact that the students are pressured, not only by the academics but also their parents into studying long hours and often, right through the night.
But what do they do it for? Where do they get this drive to succeed from? And why don’t Irish students have it?
They do it for their parents, and themselves to a certain extent. The students are loyal and respectful to their parents, who pay for their children’s educations and nurture their semi-developed minds until they eventually blossom into successful workers and parents.
Asian students also do it for themselves, as they are beginning to religiously watch North-American television programmes and want everything that they see in them. The only difference between them, and us is that we know from experience that what happens on those shows is scripted and vastly unrealistic and unachievable.
For Indian young people in particular, it is fair to say that a portion of their personal drive to succeed could be attributed to the fact that they know that when their parents go to arrange a marriage for them, their educational credentials will be used as very valuable bargaining chips. This reverts back to the aforementioned “Programmed Lives” that these students live.
My next question to you is whether or not the students of Ireland and the Western world are aware that thousands of miles away, there are millions of students working hundreds of times harder then them? It many not seem like a big deal, but put it in context… they are all gunning for the same jobs as us.
How can Western students compare with people who consider 75% a mediocre score in a statistics or anatomy exam, as they all want 98%. Sure you could argue that there are some students out there in the globalised, westernised world that achieve these exam scores, but the question is how many? The answer…not a lot.
But the ultimate question we must ask is…is this an education? I mean, sure these students are being academically educated, but what about a cultural education? What is the point in rote learning chunks of information off by heart just so you can throw them back into exams, I know we all did it for our Leaving Certificates, but we were also told that once we made it to college that would all change.
So this brings me to the central issue. Do our future employers care that we can speak four different languages or if we played on the first rugby team in college, or do they just want to see that we got honours degrees and that we can work hard, because if it’s the second option? I fear for western students and would advise them to brace themselves.
