Let me tell you this interesting incident about the secret behind awards given to schools. Yesterday once again someone messaged me to grace their occasion as a Chief Guest for an Award Ceremony. The awards were to be given to the best schools in various categories.

The venue of the award ceremony will be a high-end Hotel in Dubai!

Hain!

Dubai!

Indian Schools Awards?  In Dubai?

So just to get to know more about them, I accepted the invite.

Then came the much-expected email about the charges of the hotel stay, flight, and media coverage expenses that I SHOULD PAY if I ACCEPTED the OFFER to Be the Chief Guest!

Haila! What has the media and education industry conniving to I mean striving to achieve?

Then the same evening I received messages from two schools. They were verifying with me the authenticity of this organizing company for the same Award ceremony. Guess what? They were asked to pick the area of excellence in which they wanted to be AWARDED!  For them obviously, the charge is double and runs in a couple of Lakhs.

So the only winner is the organizing company which will be richer the moment they have received the registration fee from several schools across South Asia.

The losers are the poor parents who will be lured to the shining AWARD Certificate and then have to pay high annual school fees.

And let me warn you. This is not only at the school level. It’s prevalent at the college level, university level too.

Why blame only the education industry? It started with the Bollywood award functions where awards were pre-sold to the highest bidders. I have heard that even corporates have started buying awards to lure quality employees. “kya kya dekhana baaki hai”