startling banals

If in India, state education ministers turned education-barons (eg Patangrao Kadam, D Y Patil, Ramrao Adik) and coaching class conglomerates like the Kota-Rajasthan-Delhi IIT-JEE axis, Delhi-based competetive exam classes, Brilliant Tutorials and small fry like Agarwal, Alpha, Mahesh in Bombay have consolidated their positions in the assured-returns education industry, the US has its own equivalents.

cramster.com - "Get help with your homework now!" Solutions to commonly used PCM, science, engg college textbook problems all solved and ready to download for only 5-10$ per month. No need to apply your mind - pay money and get the solutions ready-made. They even preach responsible use of the material available on their website as a disclaimer. I had a chat with their live-chat assistant (who is probably in India). I am already feeling guilty for pain maarofying some overworked person. Original transcript available for all voyeurs here.

But this is not all. They have a KPO in New Delhi where they hire people to solve textbook problems. KPO indeed. We sure know how to process Knowledge huh. An advertisement on some obscure jobs site:

Subject Matter Expert in Math [Calculus + Algebra) (minimum Masters degree (speciality in Vector & Differential Calculus) in Math; good knowledge of MS Office and functional knowledge of Internet] / Cramster.com; East of Kailash, New Delhi

They dare declare on their website that they have outsourced homework to India. People in India seem to be so proud & full of themselves for being the front-runners in the so-called knowledge based economy of the future. Will everything be US-oriented in the future? India will provide the services and China the goods. Whose future is this?

Is anyone concerned about education at all? Borrowing some quotes from a forum.. Tagore, in his Nobel prize acceptance speech:

"... I myself had suffered when I was young through the impediments which were inflicted upon most boys while they attended schools and I have had to go through he machine of education which crushes the joy and freedom of life for which children have such insatiable thirst..."

Another Tagore quote on education which i came across on wikipedia:

"We pass examinations, and shrivel up into clerks, lawyers and police inspectors, and we die young .... Once upon a time we were in possession of such a thing as our mind in India. It was living. It thought, it felt, it expressed itself. But it has been thrust aside, and we are made to tread the mill of passing examinations, not forlearning anything, but for notifying that we are qualified for employment under organizations conducted in English. Our educated community is not a cultured community, but a community of qualified candidates."