Studying is easy - and teachers are redundant

So there's this motorist driving fast down the road while engrossed with his mobile phone. The traffic police stop him and ask for his licence.

Motorist points to the large L sign on his car and says, But I am just learning to drive!

- Learning to drive? But where is your trainer? And you are using a mobile phone while driving!
The motorist waves his mobile phone at the cop and says, I am a student of IIN.

Much the same scenario has started to exist in dental colleges across India. The pursuit of knowledge is considered to be a cakewalk, and students rejoice that all the knowledge they need is readily available on Google.

Reading books is old school now, students say. The knowledge is accessible with just a few strokes of one's fingers. Why bother to overload one's brain with unnecessary information?

Creating a PowerPoint presentation is a waste of time, they say, when so many are readily downloadable from the worldwide web. Since the seminar topics remain the same across colleges (naturally, due to the same curriculum as prescribed by the Council), students share

Seminars, prepared slides, filled teeth, carved teeth in decorated boxes, ground sections, teeth settings, soft copies of old dissertations, drawings and diagrams - they are all available for purchase, the sellers' contact information being shared through word of mouth. The student simply pays and picks up the material, and submits these for assessment as her / his own work. Soft copies of old dissertations from universities across the country are also available, and post-graduate students are now bold enough to ask their guides to select from amongst these. Once selected, the results and photographs are tweaked slightly, the institution's name changed, and the almost faultless dissertation is ready in just a few days for signing by the guide and Principal.

It is a topic of a many debates today, how the internet has led to a general dumbing of the younger generation - and a prime example is the way dental students in India are getting educated today.

Garbage in, garbage out!