The Solution

The students' lack of interest in the overall education process is something we all have been unable to correct. These statements of the staff members should illustrate this point. “They don't seem to be interested.” “Their body language speaks volumes about their interest. The slouch, they shuffle.....” “They don't seem to have a spark inside them.” “Their parents must have pushed them into medicine.” “They seem to be going along the course to wherever it will go.” Indeed, I have been discouraged as a teacher to see students arrive slowly, what my people 'trickling in' with neutral if not downright disinterested faces. The boys staying at the hostel ('Hostellites') get up late and arrive for wards or operation theaters late or not at all. That day one guy came late and gave a reason for his late arrival 'I am a Locallite and I overslept. So fellows staying at hostel give that as the reason for oversleeping, and those having their residence in town give that as the reason for coming late. God help them. But today I found a solution to this disinterest. We have a workshop on 'Emergency Medicine' going on for the last three days. The students have registered for it by paying Rupees one thousand and five hundred each. Every morning I find students with bright faces, well bathed and dressed, wearing badges around their necks and smiles on their faces, eating snacks at the college gate, talking animatedly near the gate, or shouting jubilantly in the nearby auditorium. As a teacher I have not seen any medical student in campus at that time of the day, and never in such enthusiastic form. Now I know what will get them interested them in education. We have to call the standard education process as a workshop, a different workshop every day. We have to charge them on a daily basis instead of charging fee at the beginning of the term. The fee needs to be hiked so that we can give them breakfast and lunch every day. We have to give them badges with their names on them to wear around their necks. And then, we have an entire batch of interested students, rearing to go!