Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | NXg | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest |

Making choices

Photo: K. Ganesan

Time for change Jayaprakash A. Gandhi

All it takes is a few minutes for education consultant and career analyst Jayaprakash A. Gandhi to assess the possibilities of a student getting admission in a college. He takes a look at the mark sheets, cut-off percentages and ranks before telling a student where he / she stands in the education bazaar.

Gandhi spends two hours every day collecting the latest details on education. His team, led by wife Chetana, culls out related information.

With a B. Tech and M. Tech from Anna University, Chennai, and a postgraduate diploma in computer applications from MIIT, Chennai, Gandhi’s entry into this field is quite interesting. Once, he arranged a career guidance programme for school students in Salem, and when he found that students were not happy with the counsellor, he plunged into career counselling.

After three years of learning and understanding the prevailing system of education, Gandhi started free career counselling for students, something he does even now for the economically weak and the physically-challenged.

He has completed over 5,000 career counselling programmes, and plans to go international.

The consultant, who has developed a software that helps assess the ranks of students using their scores, is concerned that neither students nor teachers care enough to update their knowledge. “Even parents are merely bothered about the next step,” he rues.

But what makes him happy is that 70 per cent of those who clear Class XII exams are from the hinterland.

The greatest cause of concern, he says, is that students don’t apply the principles that they learn by rote. “Students should be oriented towards knowledge development, but they forget everything once the examinations are over,” he says.

Commenting on the declining reading habit, Gandhi stresses the need for an exclusive source of information on education. “Newspapers have their weekly supplements and there are programmes on television, but the immediate need is a 24 x 7 channel that doles out the ‘a to z’ of information on education.”

One thing that worries him is that Tamil Nadu is the only State that allows 30 marks (out of 150) as pass for science subjects. “If the trend continues, B.E. will become more like Class XII and there will be a serious employment crisis in the days ahead,” he says.

But, there is hope he feels — a revolution that will revamp the entire education system by 2020.

Memorable moments? “Plenty. Such as when a milk vendor’s son came from Thiruchengode driving a car bought from his first month’s salary and requested me to take the first drive.” For details, call his Narasus’ Sarathy Institute of Technology, Salem: 0427-2449482 / 2318056.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail