“Education in the true sense,” wrote India’s celebrated philosopher-educator Jiddu Krishnamurti, “is helping the individual to be mature and free, to flower greatly in love and goodness. That is what we should be interested in, and not in shaping the child according to some idealistic pattern.” How far India’s education system has strayed from the noble purposes of education is reflected in the regular reports of students’ suicides from Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)—two in recent weeks from IIT-Delhi and IIT-Bombay—in the lakhs who vie for top scores in competitive examinations, from stories of constant stress and performance anxiety in students, and from discrimination in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that SC/ST/OBC students are subjected to.

Students Face........

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