Where's the Practical Knowledge?

I just finished my third year exams, and I can't help but wonder, what use are these exams to us when the emphasis is on marks and not on what knowledge has gone into our heads?

I mean, what use are our marks and percentages and what not, going to be when we finish our degree and step into the real world? Yeah we'll get a job based on what we have 'studied' for four years; but, does anyone wonder why, unlike other countries, Indian education emphasises theoretical education (most of the time) and not practical? Yes, we do have practicals and laboratory things and stuff. My question is, how many students get to know the actual reason for these experiments that we do in our labs? Very very few. Most of us would go, conduct the experiment according to instructions given by the lab in-charge/attender, note down some values and put them in some formulae, get the answer and leave - all this being done in the shortest possible while. So, did we learn anything there? No. Why is he experiment conducted? Dunno. What is its significance? Ho-hum..who cares? This is the attitude of many students (sometimes me too), and the teachers don't bother either. Their opinion is 'If the students want, they'll ask. Why should we put the effort?'. I'm sure most teachers are like this. There are some, of course, who'll take the time to explain everything(while some or most students will be yawning).

Foreign universities, on the other hand, put more emphasis on practical aspects, and the method of teaching employed by them forces the student to study on his/her own, rather than rely on the lecturer to provide the notes and other things. Here it's the opposite. Even though some colleges' teaching method forces the students to do some serious self-study, most colleges don't. So is there a solution?

I think there is. What we need is a system where practical knowledge is given at least as much

importance as theoretical knowledge, if not more; this will mean that students, when they finally come out from their colleges with a degree certificate in their hand, should have an idea of what awaits them when they get a job. They should not be like a pen-drive filled with a lot of data but not able to do anything else other than reproduce that data somewhere else. Most importantly though, we need a single authority on higher education, that controls all the colleges in the country very strictly, and maybe some tie-ups with foreign universities to enable knowledge exchange and an idea on what is going on in other colleges around the world.

I just hope that my juniors will get a better practical knowledge than I have got, instead of having their brains filled up with lots of theory, with no idea on how to implement it practically.〄