Are IIT-JEE toppers role models? Or just Models?

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By: rishabh_kaul | Jul 04, 2007 06:48 PM
IIT-JEE!
For many, it spells terror, anxiety and even the ones who
dismiss the competition(because they beat it) rather saying that it was
fun or interesting would agree that it did give them
goose bumps, at
least as the days inched closer.

Today the IIT industry has
become a huge investment ground with new coaching academies springing
up in every nook and corner. There are areas entirely dedicated to the
IIT coaching industry and the whole neighborhood thrives on it. The
roads are covered with pamphlets and brochures of various coaching
institutes.

It’s almost taken for granted that to get into IIT,
you have to have coaching. And in many places (AP being the foremost
here), it starts from an early age. Sometime it is even before the kid
has reached puberty.

Every year, the IIT-JEE topper becomes a
national celebrity. His photo comes on the front page of every news
paper. He gives countless interviews to various media agencies. And
thus the drama starts.

It’s a known fact that many toppers
accept money from institutes that haven’t been affiliated to, just so
that they can advertise for them. Now the question that needs to be
answered is that is this right? This has been talked about on various
blogs. Vivek addresses the problem on his blog.

What
he’s basically asking is that are JEE toppers models for any academy
that can be hired? We might say that it seems ethically wrong. At least
that’s what our gut feeling says at first instinct.
But then he also
says what about a Dhoni who says that a 7 UP made him the brilliant
cricketer that he is now, or Roberto Carlos attributing his football
skills to the sports-drink Gatorade?
Aren’t these people lying too?
So then why should the education industry be singled out? It’s a
business after all. The coaching institutes are factories that need
ranks because only then will they get more and more students and there
never seems to be a plethora of them for newer buildings (branches)
keep springing up.


In JEE
2005 2004 Priya Gupta of Delhi secured AIR 2. She was overwhelmed. Smart she was and had joined FIITJEE,
a prestigious IITJEE training institute with branches all over India.
However a rival institute in the mean time offered jobs to those
teachers at FIITJEE who had trained Ms Gupta. When the results were
declared, the rival institute claimed that they too were responsible
for her success since those teachers now belong to them.

Are IITJEE toppers models?

The
problem here according to me is that, since these IITJEE toppers are
normal guys and girls next door, their word is taken more seriously
than say a Milind Soman advertising for Nivea cold cream or the sorts.
Also
in the case of celebrities like actors and sportsperson, the public has
seen them grow from rookies to superstars where as in the case of an
IIT topper only the final outcome is presented.
Another problem is
after tenth grade the student is rather gullible and well in most cases
so are his/her parents and doesn’t know which institution to join,
seeing AIR hailing from a particular institution will make him/her want
to join it.
Another major reason why it feels wrong is because in
the case of a sports-person, celebrity you know that its like a
lottery, as in only 15 people make it to the squad, or only 3-4 movies
are successful each year, the point I am trying to make is that,
whether Sachin drinks Boost to improve his performance or smells
Agarwal incense sticks, it doesn’t matter to the common because he
doesn’t want to be a cricket. But as opposed to becoming a cricketer or
an actor, IIT is very much reachable, with 12000 people being called
this year (including all the lists, Ok I’ve included reservation seats,
that’s not the context here).