The education system has often been criticised for a variety of reasons. The syllabus and methods today have been dumbed-down to a large extent in a bid to reduce ‘stress’ for students. The fact that students care nothing about real learning but just depend on tips and tricks, shortcuts is the way the system functions today. Parents today are worried about the fact that their children have this laid-back attitude towards studies. But how much of this is the fault of the children itself, rather than the methods we have incorporated?
In an attempt to draw attention to the disparity in the education structure we have created a movie, Rough Book. The movie is directed by the Indie film director, Anant Mahadevan.It is an attempt to establish correct facts about coaching and highlight wrong practices that some players accede to. Students’ not-attending schools, dummy attendance, day-night coaching, are some practices which we are totally against. The movie highlights the point that correct coaching can definitely build careers of even weak students. These are the students, who generally get misplaced in the classification of students, on the basis their marks.
Having been in the education sector for over 2 decades now, we have closely experienced problems which students, teachers, and the management face. All the scenes and dialogues in the movie are motivated from our own personal experiences of dealing with teachers, students and parents. Apart from our own inputs, the script team also visited various schools, met with teachers, 7 principals, their students as well as sat in the class to observe teachings styles. It was an involved effort of nearly 2-3 months before actual shoot could start. Our deep knowledge of coaching industry, its’ teachers, students and parents gave us all what we needed to write the story and create a movie script with myriad characters.
A still from the film- the students
We don’t intend to revolutionise or change the education system over night. But this film is an attempt to educate students and teachers about the kind of negative impact the existing system has. The idea is to differentiate between studying and learning. That is what film aims at.
If one looks at the city of Kota, they will understand the intensity of the issue. Students from the age of 12 go to live there and study, but what facilities do they get? The city has already been stretched at the seams, but still year after year there is a huge influx of students. Their accommodations are filthy. The quality of food is bad. There are so many concerns that need to be addressed, yet ignored.
We are a nation with the youngest population, but what is the future available for these youngsters. The situations are thought provoking, yet it is neglected. Without the base of good, quality education how will these youngsters survive? Where will our country head to? If at young age, one doesn’t get good education and employment, it is easy to head towards crime. Won’t that be a disaster? The govt. is doing things, but basic education up to 10 std. is still very fragile.
There should be more focus on providing quality teaching at the primary and secondary level of education.
Rough book was released in Kota, Rajasthan, where it has completed it’s 5th week of successful run. Post that the movie released in Delhi. It will be released across the country with upcoming openings in Mumbai, Pune, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh