Kudos to Kartik Sawhney who has scored 96 percent marks in his CBSE 12th exam (479 out of 500). He is a student of Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram and scored 99 in computer science and 95 each in Mathematics, English, Physics and Chemistry. This genius has now opted to study at Stanford University, U.S. But why has Kartik taken this decision of going abroad and pursuing his college education in the U.S. though we have many prestigious institutes for higher education in India?
The reason is that our education system which does not support a blind student to study further. Yes, he is blind and not allowed to sit for the IIT-JEE entrance examination just because of his physical impairment. He was too keen to pursue his studies in India but the present guidelines of IIT-JEE are not blind-friendly.
Till last year, visually impaired students were allowed to give theory test at IIT, but with certain changes in the regulations, such students are now not allowed to sit for theory even with assistance of technology.
I think such regulations in Indian education system are doing nothing but promoting brain drain. Surely, there must be many geniuses like Kartik in India who might be struggling to get admission in the higher institutes of India, but due to certain reasons and regulations they are forced to study abroad. With this, we are not doing any sort of good. We are happily giving our brain and intelligence to other countries for use in all sorts of research developments and growth. The message given would be that we do not want to study in our own country and choose the U.S. for the same. But actually, the reality is different – we want to study in India but regulations are not allowing this to happen.
Regulations are man-made and so there must be some provision for differently-abled students who are capable and for sure are not less than any other child.
I hope to see a better India one day, where intelligence and knowledge power will overshadow the physical impairment.
