Two nations of the exam
In large, populous and stratified countries, a viable social contract needs some way of promising equality of opportunity. India and China have converged on the same instrument: the competitive public exam. For all the anxiety, exhaustion, and tragedy these examinations produce, for hundreds of millions of families they remain the one guaranteed shot at a better life.
The two countries might be separated by the Himalayas but are united by an organising principle of family life: it is a parent’s duty to engineer the conditions under which a child can sit an exam, and a child’s duty to sit it. We are both nations of the Exam.
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Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
