Similarities of a school and BPO

It’s a kind of cliche nowadays. "BPOs and call centers have raised living standards of Indians and the youth in particular". On first glance it should be a real truth as evident in increase in employment, increase in spending, sprouting malls, coffee joints etc. They say everything is a cycle. This BPO or a Call center job also takes the cycle back to the school days. The days where in you are expected to maintain utmost punctuality, adherence to time tables etc. Here in BPOs swipe in & swipe outs, scheduled breaks are very much prevalent and more so critical. Nothing to be blamed .As they are the characteristics of an industry. Characteristics that actually translate into profits. However the outcome expected of a school’s rules and regulation is Discipline. Here in the BPO it is mere profit. So it would only be befitting to say that we turn back to a school kind of life at BPO’s and call centers sans discipline. Add to that the woes of wicked timings of work. People get contracted with all kind of stress related problems. If we take a penetrative look the woes are abundant. Take for example a guy from a second tier city who has done a 3 year course in some arts & science discipline(like my place karur,trichy etc).4-5 years back this arts & science guy would have himself cursed of not pursuing a engineering career. However he would simply try and pursue some PG course or specialized (NIIT) course to make himself as much saleable in the market. But nowadays call centers are beckoning. If youa re able to speak some good english the call centers readily offer a job with good salary (atleast equivalent to techies in the initial stages). Now what happens is that the guy stops learning, stops from enhancing his abilities. Rather falls a prey to the call center requirements. This trend has already multiplied. People are shunning further learning. At a call center job also u do not face immense challenges so as the job and circumstances to groom you. All this will end up in knocking of the country’s intellectual wealth. Also loads of engineers and PG’s are wasting their precious talents and time in such jobs. This will have its drastic effects on a long term. Hence we go back and answer our question. Has BPOs and call centers improved life standards? May be it is a Mirage. But definition of Standards is something that makes sense. In that sense may be we are actually losing.