Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Belling the CAT

After reading the headline of TOI (which is India's smashhit tabloid), "1.5 million cool cats to feel the heat today", I just smiled. Perhaps, because the hit has really got into me, or is there anything "cool" about this damn exam CAT....don't know. Whatever the results may be, but the pattern of this exam really disturbs me. The aim of this "toughest" exam is to churn out the best managers for India and the world. We are searching for the cooperate leaders of tomorrow, who have the vision and the zeal to guide the country (I am totally ignoring brain drain over here :) But what we end up getting are people good at comprehending English ?? With the minimal requirements for maths and logical reasoning being too low, all that the exam boils down to is ENGLISH.
It's not my frustation which is writing all this. Seriously, I am pleased that DI this year was based on reasoning and not on fast calculations, where you end up being a slow calculator in a world of 3.1 GHz computers !!
English being the basis of passing this exam, we are ignoring majority of our students who have taken education in Hindi and other regional languages. Are we missing out on a vast pool of talent due to our mindless slavery to Lord McCauley's policies ? Afterall, the greatest entrepreneur and manager of modern India, Dhirubhai was not fluent at English. Management is common sense, jotted down in nice words. So, how is "common sense" related to one's knowledge of english, or for that matter numbers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

'So, how is "common sense" related to one's knowledge of english, or for that matter numbers.' - its not..common sense has nothing to do with knowledge of english - but in today's India of MNC's and dollar dreams.. communicating your common sense requires a good working knowledge of the english language.. exactly what Cat tests u on..