AlphaBetting

A strange word or rather a coalition of words caught my eye in The Hindu this week. Someone, I don’t remember the author or the article, but it was about a statement by someone regarding a minimum qualification for journalists. People, well journalists in particular were not so pleased by that.  The word that caught my eye was Academic Inflation. It does raise one’s brow doesn’t it? I have this bad habit of observing words, vocab if you want to call it. I like to observe and think and rethink about meanings and reasons for use of certain vocab. I think I was 16 years old when my sister took me as a ‘subject’ for her psychology practical exam. I was given a test and in the end she announced that I had poor verbal abilities.

Ouch!

Years later, the CAT 2012 proved her right. 

OK so my vocab sucks, maybe that’s why I’m interested in looking more closely at words and that’s how this caught me. Academic Inflation. It really is something, and it’s happening all around. How many times have you heard your peers saying “one degree just isn’t enough anymore”? My sister herself took up masters because she thought just having a bachelor’s degree was worthless. (I’m not sure how much she loved the subject, lemme not get on her bad side over a blogpost)  My dad had also told me that I really need to pursue a master’s course. He too thinks one degree isn’t enough. Forget these people, I can point a finger at anyone in a crowd and say he has atleast 1 friend, if not himself, in the US studying MS. It’s the trend. Two degrees is mandatory. 

My nephew was being admitted to a school and the enrolment application form said that both parents need to have a master’s degree. Seriously?? OK parents being graduates is common these days, but PG?? Come on!! So the value for education is decreasing. Today your kid can get a school admission if you’re a graduate, tomorrow you need to be a PG and then a PHD??

In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time. Or a reduction in the purchasing power per unit of money right? So Academic Inflation would mean the reduction in credibility providing power per unit of education? Or something like that.

We’ve heard most people saying that they go for a master’s degree to add more value to themselves, but a degree is not a certificate of competence, is it? So what does that mean? The people who do masters are actually people who are incompetent to survive with just a graduation degree? Then doesn’t that make them less intelligent? 

With increasing popularity of Steve jobs and the kind; on the one side we have a propaganda about studies or structured education not being a necessity, and on the other we have people scrambling and swarming exam halls and classrooms because they want to be more credible. All these mean, the higher your educational qualification, the lower is your competence? 

 

So if we take a clean sheet approach where each person is stripped of their qualification or background, and graded based on their ability to think, work and other performance measurement criteria, then where would each one stand? Nooo we don’t want to do that… Cuz its just easy to throw around my weight cuz I have a fancy MS or a Phd.. but wait... So does everyone else in my country!! I’m gonna buy more degrees! Another Phd perhaps??