"So how was your exam?" I asked a team member who was on leave for 3 days as she is doing MBA from one of the well-known distance learning institutes. 'Good one. I had learnt the sums by heart so no issues there'. "What? What do you mean by learnign sums by heart? It is not necessary that you will get exact same sums in the exams." I said incredulously. "Yes madam, the exam papers contain the same sums that are part of the curriculum' she said, smiling. It was all I could do not to blurt out 'What kind of idiotic course is this? What's the point of doing it if the chances of you learning anything and applying it to newer problems are practically nil?'. Hey, it was her money and it was her business. But that gave me an indication of the sorry state of affairs of the entire Indian Education system.

It's a business - pure and simple. The educational institutes - barring a few, just to make an exception to the rule - are in it to mint money and the gullible students as well as their parents, both from the hinterlands and metros, are spending money to buy degrees. In this mad rush to sell and acquire degrees, the desire to learn, the ability to apply the knowledge and to improve in the process is clearly going out the window.

No wonder then that we keep finding that the candidates who turn up for the interviews fall woefully short of the requirements - even on the basics front. The sad part is that no one seems to care. :-(