India too has a spelling contest is apparently not such a rage in India as it is in the United States where the 86th edition of the National Spelling Bee was held last week, and a student of Indian descent won the top honours.
Indian Americans have been winning it for the past six years.
Around 11 million apply to participate in the US while in India, 2,50,000 students between age nine and 14 did this year to participate in the contest run by HDFC since 2009.
An official who runs it was quoted by Wall Street Journal's India Real Time saying that Indian schools "don't consider spelling competitions as important academically and put a greater focus on other subjects".
"Exceptional" at science and mathematics, Indian students are "not as good at English" and their "vocabulary is not very developed and less importance is put on the understanding of English than other subjects".
But then, isn't India ahead of others in the business outsourcing business (BPO) and such I-T enabled services because it has the largest English-speaking population?
By the way, such contests are orthographical. Look up the dictionary for orthographic it is not often used here.
Indian Americans have been winning it for the past six years.
Around 11 million apply to participate in the US while in India, 2,50,000 students between age nine and 14 did this year to participate in the contest run by HDFC since 2009.
An official who runs it was quoted by Wall Street Journal's India Real Time saying that Indian schools "don't consider spelling competitions as important academically and put a greater focus on other subjects".
"Exceptional" at science and mathematics, Indian students are "not as good at English" and their "vocabulary is not very developed and less importance is put on the understanding of English than other subjects".
But then, isn't India ahead of others in the business outsourcing business (BPO) and such I-T enabled services because it has the largest English-speaking population?
By the way, such contests are orthographical. Look up the dictionary for orthographic it is not often used here.
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