Today marked the culmination of high drama. It always is when it comes to matters of admission to educational institutions in India. Let me start at the beginning. I got to know that a young man who had scored very high marks in his 12th grade had been called for "counselling' to an Engg College in Tamil Nadu. The college shall remain unnamed. I will just say that it has a good reputation among employers like Tata Consultancy Services. Anyway this boy's parents being very poor could not afford to pay for his education, which would therefore have remained a pipe dream. Enter my mother. In a conversation with the boy's family she found out about the boy's intellect and his passion to pursue engineering and casually mentioned this to me over the phone in our daily conversation. Coincidentally, a friend in the States, had spoken to me the day before about wanting to be a benefactor of deserving kids who needed financial help for their education. Connecting the dots I immediately contacted him and he promptly despatched the initial payment which the boy would have to make after seat allotment which would follow a "counselling" interview. So the young man set out to this out of town college, a spring in his step and joy in his heart. When he arrived there he got a sucker punch. He was told his prospect for a seat was bleak and of one in his field of choice even bleaker. He was despondent. Turns out people had come in and bought seats with large sums of money. The word "counselling" is used as a ploy to auction seats off to the highest bidder. He could not insist on a seat since his call letter only mentioned the possibility of seat allotment after a counselling interview. He waited and waited while the high rollers walked away with seats in the plum branches. He saw his chances dwindling. He had near perfect marks and the money to pay his fees - but sadly that was not going to do. An innocent young boy who could ill afford to even travel out of his city woke up in a day to the cruelty and corruption of this world.
Happily the story ended well for him today. Desperate, he called my sister, who somehow tracked down a board member of this college, who is a patient of hers, even as she kept the boy's spirits up insisting that he stick around and persist. After 4 days of anguish, he got his admission today, in the only course that was left. Needless to say that was not his first choice! Phew the army of people rooting for him heaved a collective sigh! He will be first person to go to university from his family. But can you imagine the plight of other young boys and girls who do not have the support he received? Most poor children cannot even get this far without paying huge fees for coaching schools and tutorials to prep them for high scores in the 12th exams. They have to be exceptionally bright like this young man. And even after that there are few guarantees. How demotivating for these bright young minds! How can social mobility and income redistribution occur with all these inequities, compounded by corruption of the worst order?
A few of us, including the benefactor in this story, want to help more bright young girls and boys in India who wish to pursue post secondary education and cannot afford it. If you know of people who could use this sort of help do let me know!
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