Thursday, June 08, 2006

pune for a day.

lalitha and me took a day trip to pune today to attend a meeting on the new admission procedures to enter architecture school. as far back as i can remember the procedures have changed every year. the quotas for the various categories, the various organizations involved, the various bodies that claim to be in charge- it all keeps getting more and more convoluted and twisted. at todays meeting resolutions were read out, more complicated questions were posed- and we still don’t know exactly whom this benefits- definitely not the students who are confused and bewildered as they always were.

i don’t even know what the tests that we hold every day in the school to evaluate their visual skills test. the first question is particularly offensive. it asks the kids to reproduce an ‘abstract’ drawing of curls and cuboids and paint neatly in between the lines with four ‘matching’ colours. its an exercise that seems to be more about testing a regimented unimaginative rigor than any kind of genuine talent. the stupider you are, the better the score. but that what we need from students in this system – automatons who will follow orders efficiently without questioning a thing.

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