Losing the spirit of competition.

Some recent news that made me a little uncomfortable. First one was the latest decision of “best of five” subjects in SSC and second one of the decision about not to fail any student till 8th standard.

Somehow I disagree.
When I think of the educational process that I went through.... and the current one being modified through which may be my daughter will go through, I feel a lot of difference and also feel that the system will remain for the namesake. Onus of developing the competitive spirit will be more of a parental responsibility than a educational process.

Instead of upgrading the system to reduce the gap between toppers and average performers, the system is being degraded to bring everyone to equal in a wrong way.
But again, given the undue importance that was being put on marks and percentages, this was to happen.
Only point is that it should have been a relaxation instead of total elimination of stress. A little stress is always beneficial and required for performance. It could have been introduction of grade system where candidates are classified into broad categories till 8th standard. But total elimination of competition is wrong in my opinion.
Many people say that we never use in future life what we learn in school. But that is only partially true in my opinion. Those things invariably leave an impact on our character, and imbibe a lot of morals and ethics through stories,lessons, history. Add an eye for facts and figures through maths and science.
We may not use those exact texts in future but the values they add to our persona's can not be denied. To some they add 80% to some it may be only 20-30 % depending on individual learnability but this fact can not be denied.
As in my case I fully believe that whatever confidence I have to succeed in any field I choose to enter with proper preparation, is due to the competition I faced in my school and college days. A healthy competition is always welcome. It improves the quality of every party involved.

Now when there is competition, someone is ought to win and someone loose. But that is again a lesson in life. You may not win every time. It is all about trying your best.
In current situation the reason that being put forth about increasing suicide rate among children,
I guess it is more to do about parents attitude towards the whole process. The same process is being followed for so many generations. Only in recent years these suicides have began. I put entire blamer on parents.
All around I see parents, one may not even go gar, just have a look at people around you, everyone want their child to score more and more marks, with total disregard to the ability, likes and dislikes of the child. Parents are under more pressure than the children and the pressure then is transmitted through various ways. The child may not necessarily have the ability. It then become a frustrating experience for the child , the parent and everyone around.
One my relatives had started telling to everyone that their son will surely rank in merit list in 10th exam. Poor child was put under so much of emotional pressure that the boy who had consistently scored 94-95% throughout school life, scored 85% in 10th. His father was so much shocked that, instead of the child, who was in need of support, it was the father who needed more support to recover.

Anyway, the who;e pint is that, it the aim is to relieve the pressure from children, it need to be done in a diffenrne manner.
If there is no pressure to pass in exam, then there is no pressure to study.. there is no knowledge gained and in the end it is the child who is on the loosing side. Schools may welcome this because they need not bother about anything, just collect the fees, let the child sit in the classroom for whole day, no worry about the quality of teachers, no worry of teaching anything, just move the child from one standard to another year after year. It is a really horrible scenario. I can see the quality of education drastically going down, so much that it may even happen that children will reach 8th standard and may not even know how to read and write.
Then they will start failing in the 9th and 10th. May be then govt will do away with those exams also.
But how far one can go on doing this?
This can be done at the most till the child graduates. We may even give degrees to children without any exam and then we may even have graduates who may not be able to read and write. But will anyone will employ a graduate at such a level? May be govt institutions... but what about others?
Will India as a country then will survive in the global competition?

You can not eliminate the competition from life altogether.
At some point of time in their lives these children will have to face the competition. And they will not at all be prepared for it. Failure is the only outcome if you enter a competition without preparation.
So if we can not eliminate the competition altogether than the only way out is to prepare the children to face the competition head on, Struggle and ultimately come out triumphant.

I need to figure out a way to imbibe these qualities into my daughter in case this stupid drama goes on for next 4-5 years. Let's see how I succeed as a parent.