Investing in education: the Indian intelligence
A. Jayaprakash.

It is money. It is investment. And it is returns, no matter what. This is the mindset of Indian parents. They go to any length and travel extra miles to find an intelligent investment option even when it is something pertaining to their children’s education. It starts much before a baby gets born, and this investment pursuit even goes up to the extent of blocking a Medical or Engineering seat in one of the premier colleges or institutes investing millions.

Some parents are ready to pay 3 to 4 million Indian rupees for a medical seat. But some parents are so intelligent that they beget intelligent children, and these wizkids forego all odds and grab the much coveted 4 million worth seats out of sheer intelligence and hard work. It is just wonderful to see brilliant children just doing it. The investment side of education is applicable more to those parents who stubbornly believe that their getting-to-be-bourn kids are wizards and they would make it to the Medical or Engineering seats.

This notion gets shattered when they come to terms the SSLC or Plus 2 results. Without realizing their potential and limitations, these parents identify high end schools, pay for the seat, and even register for an admission to upcoming courseware which would revolutionize the very way the world rotates. Their calculations come crashing and they go for seats that are hawked out for sale. They invest there. They wisely invest with their eyes set right on returns. Once their kids transform themselves into Docs and Execs, the parents find themselves on top of the world. Now it is time for returns. If they had paid three or four million for a seat, they are going to make millions all through their life using their kids.

Their market is so big. NRI dependent patients, obsessed with the fear of death, are out there to pay millions to keep themselves alive for a day or two more. Multinational business tycoons are whirling around our just-out candidates. They grab and offer them pay cheques big enough to make a few millions look much smaller in a few years’ time. So it is returns all the way. New, budding parents; invest in education and rest assured that your money is bound to get appreciated many times more than what your wildest imagination has ever expected.

Never ask your kids what they want to study. Never spare a minute to understand the fears and anxieties of your kids. Never bother if they commit suicide out of academic pressures. What our country needs are Docs. Execs. Artists, writers, danseuse, cartoonists, actors, novelists, journalists, scientists, thinkers, philosophers, reformers, social workers, teachers, guides, resource persons, intellectuals, administrators, humourists, comedians, creative artist and innumerable similar inevitable and highly rewarding social resources are not investment-friendly areas.

And if ever you find any traits of the above social human resources in your kids in their formative years, take all possible steps to nip that trait in the bud, and stuff your kids’ little brains with equations and information and thus lead your kids to the mesmerizing landscape of money, material and mammon worship.

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