Eventually I have observed that any profession in Germany is respectable. I sometimes wonder why cant people in India have the same attitude. A student commits suicide because of lower grades! Why? Are marks important than one’s life? I believe majority of the times it may be because of the social pressure and also thoughts imposed by one’s parents. Parents have this common mindset, ‘What will others think or say about you if you get low marks? Your parents are Engineer and Doctor, you must also be one.’ Indirectly imposed on the child, otherwise the impression of the child and parents degrades. In a class of 50, only one can be first and out of the rest 49, majority of them live in guilt and pressure of the surrounding. Why doctor’s son should also be a doctor? Parents tell their children that you want to be doctor. Does the son really think what his liking really is? Or may be it is a preconceived notion by the parents that he has to be a doctor to take forward the family business and to pay back the investment of set up required to run the clinic. I believe no job is white collar job in real sense. Even doctors have their commissions from the hospital. They admit the patients sometimes for more no. of days than required till their monetary targets or deal with hospital is not achieved.
Here in Germany, I could observe the respect of parents towards their child’s decision regarding profession. If anyone wishes to be Hair stylist, one can easily pursue one’s willing career with no social obligation. There is no comparison done by parents in the community. We hear so frequently in our country, “Your parents are lawyers or bla bla bla and you have opted Bachelor of Arts or any profession that does not fit into family status?” Why not? Why should it affect parents and the very helpful relatives who just create social pressure? It is not compulsory here for a child to do complete school education for 13 years. I mean by this, after a certain level, the child can choose the kind of school he or she wants to attend, of course depending upon grades. It is not required that a dumb student or I would like to put it in a different way, one who doesn’t have liking towards any of the subjects, can opt for other school and learn only those required for the profession he has chosen. I appreciate this system. As rightly put in the movie ‘Shikshanacha aaicha gho’. All subjects are taught irrespective of the field one wants to be in and what the child really perceives from it. The choice of subjects and stream of education can be decided after 10th standard. Yes of course, I agree the kind of rat race we have in India, one has to be well versed and have to make options open for him/her. The rat race makes one learn whatever possible…..I hope we can make things lighter so as to reduce the pressure on students.
