View of competition in Indian education

People often talk about the competition in education in India.  Sometimes they do not appreciate the extent of it.  The competition is high even for the University courses… which eventually lead you nowhere.  There is no one out there hiring a person who has an undergrad degree in Commerce or English.  Bachelors degree almost means nothing in India.. unless it is a B.Tech or a Bachelors in Engineering.  Despite that, the competition for admission to such degrees is mind boggling!  Here is an example:

Applicants with high grades have far outnumbered the number of seats. At least 223 applicants with scores above 95 per cent and 3,962 applicants scoring between 90 to 95 per cent have applied for the sought-after courses. The cut-offs for popular courses such as B.Com (H), B.A (H) Economics, B.A(H) English and B.Com (Programme) are set to rise from last year, officials say.

“We expect the cut-offs for for courses like B. Com (H) and English to stay above the 90 per cent mark,” said Gurpreet Singh Tuteja, deputy dean (students welfare), Delhi University.

That is – if you scored 475 out of 500 in all your subjects as an aggregate in your high school.. you just might have a chance at the top named college (although it will have the same course/subjects/exam as the rest will)!!  It is just mind-boggling!

On one hand, you can say such competition spurs on the smartest to rise above.. on the other hand, it also leads to burn out of the youth.  There is little creativity left to tackle a changing world and bring out new ideas.