1 month ago
NEW DELHI:
Zoho
founder and CEO
Sridhar Vembu
criticized the intense pressure of competitive exams in India as "a rat race to extinction." Sharing his views on an advertisement by the prominent educational institute FIITJEE, Sridhar highlighted the harmful narrative perpetuated by such ads. The advertisement disparaged a student for scoring poorly in a competitive exam, attributing her low marks to her departure from
FIITJEE
to join another institute.
"India has to get out of this ultra-competitive
exam pressure
on children and young adults," Sridhar said.
"Intense pressure at a young age all too often destroys talent and creates zombified adults. It is the rat race to extinction.
"Intense competition is for companies serving a market and for sports, not for children in education," said the CEO of the global software-as-a-service (SaaS) company.
The advertisement was initially flagged by Katyayani Sanjay Bhatia, Deputy Commissioner, IRS.
"We talk about parents putting pressure on kids for IIT JEE, but what about this manner of advertising where you shame a student for not performing? And claiming superiority by claiming that she would have performed had she been in your institute? Shameful @fiitjee," she wrote in the post.
Interestingly, the Institute has reportedly withheld salaries of its employees for the last two months, calling them to work harder.
"Coming to the office without clear goals will not take you anywhere. Salary is not a matter of right, it needs to be earned by doing what is expected of you to do," Dinesh Kumar Goel, founder and managing director of FIITJEE, reportedly wrote in one of the emails.
