Addressing a Town Hall meeting in California last March, US president Barack Obama urged Americans to raise their standards of education as they faced competition from “Bangalore and Beijing”. Obama may have praised the Indian education system, but Rajkumar Hirani’s 3 Idiots, the biggest Bollywood hit of all time, exposes some glaring pitfalls in our education system — the emphasis on reproducing texts verbatim, parental pressure, test scores vs real learning — forcing us to introspect.
Princess Franklyn, principle of Bishop Cotton Girls’ School in the city, acknowledges that although our education system is appreciated around the world, there’s a downside to it — rote learning and a curriculum that’s too theoretical, for instance. While Franklyn hasn’t watched 3 Idiots yet, her career as an educationist has acquainted her with the loopholes the film throws up. Her school, she says, is focussed on creating a thought-provoking environment, offering many avenues for students to explore their interests. However, she finds most parents are an anxious lot who’d rather just have their kids get first rank in class: “I often meet parents who care about nothing but marks, and re-orienting their thinking to let their kids make their own choices is a challenge,” she says, and feels educating parents is the need of the hour.
Arunima Singh, mother of two daughters, one five and the other three-and-a-half, loved the film and its message: “I’ve believed in that message all along, so I can’t say it changed my views. It only affirmed my way of thinking since I’m a firm believer in letting children discover their own strengths.” At the same time, Singh doubts if the film will create converts among those who do not endorse its message. “Indian parents have very little trust in their children. They think kids have to be driven. This lack of basic faith in your kids’ ability to understand his/ her own strengths is disappointing,” she says. Singh quotes the lack of choices she has in Bangalore to explore mediums of study other than the mainstream as an example of this mentality. “While there are alternative schools, there aren’t enough, and taking distance and other factors into consideration, I feel I may have to opt for a mainstream school after all,” she says.
Rashmi Ajay, mother of a nine- year-old and a three-year-old loved 3 Idiots and its focus. “The film emphasises on figuring out what one truly loves, pursuing it and achieving excellence at it,” she says, adding that’s something she and her husband Ajay have always believed. As parents, both of them made a conscious decision to enrol their son into an alternative school, one that that stressed on inquiry and free-thinking. She seconds Singh’s thoughts on Indian parents, saying most parents are driven by test-scores, and the film may not go down too well with them.
Kumkum Dutta, a middle-school teacher at Bangalore International School and a mother of two, says the film resonated with her as she personally doesn’t believe in pushing kids to pursue careers they aren’t interested in. “I thought the message delivered by the film was timely and necessary. I was very happy and impressed that a mainstream Hindi film was tackling such ideas,” she says. At the same time, she has encountered resistance to these ideas from parents who have interacted with her.
“A parent I met expressed deep disapproval of the film. Having achieved success in the tried-and tested way of hard work and a solid education, he wants his kids to do the same and feels a film like 3 Idiots can encourage the wrong ideas.”
She is, however, more hopeful about the film’s impact on young parents who are just deciding on what kind of schooling to provide their children and feels it may prompt some of them to explore alternative education methods — but only if the film’s somewhat subversive ideas had already been hovering in their subconscious.
