Ever since its invention, the photocopier has gradually gained exponential popularity over the years. Slowly yet surely it has become a part of our official, commercial and academic spheres. But interestingly, the process of photocopying has now found a new place of reckoning in the Indian education sphere. The patrons of photocopying are none other than the Indian college students who nowadays swear by its utility and advantages.
The utilities of photocopying
The Indian college students have taken to photocopying like never before. The phenomenon is so rampant nowadays that the students are using photocopies as substitutes for books which have proven to be beneficial to then in various ways. Textbooks that are far too costly to be bought, rarely available or needed on an urgent notice can be easily accessed by means of photocopying. The physical unavailability of the book itself can be overcome in this way which is indeed helpful for the students. Professors too nowadays prefer photocopying to original books as they are much easier and simpler to be handed out to students. A few pages photocopies from a book can easily do the same job as a book itself besides providing many additional benefits.
Negative effects of photocopying on the student
Though photocopying may superficially seem to be a highly productive and beneficial process that assists one and all hailing from the education sphere, still it has got many negative aspects to it. The willingness of a student to study from a book decreases as a result of using selected photocopies pages from books and notes. The student will no longer bother to do the time consuming and rather arduous process of going through an entire book while studying any subject. He would rather choose to study selected portions which he had already photocopied from somewhere. The same phenomenon is encouraged by professors when they hand out photocopies instead of encouraging the same students to study reference books.
The impact on education
Education is sadly yet surely taking a heavy blow as a consequence of the rampant photocopying among the college students. The eagerness of the students to strive for original thinking, creativity and knowledge based learning is taking a nosedive. They are giving more stress on the application of photocopies instead of their expressing their educational merit. The same phenomenon is also making the students more dependent on notes rather than on different reference books from where the scope of learning is much higher. The stress is more on giving exams and passing them with good marks by rote learning assisted by some photocopied pages rather than learn and gain knowledge in order to excel in academics.
How to co-exist with this necessary evil?
Any person will confess about the benefits that photocopying has in spite of the aforesaid facts. Yes, it is indeed beneficial to all but not at the cost of the willingness to work and the eagerness to learn. The students must feel that rote learning from photocopies and scoring marks is not the way out to excel in academics. The professors too must encourage the students to take up to reference books in order to prepare themselves just like those days of yore when photocopies were unheard of. The responsibility lies on all to use the technical boom and utilize it fruitfully so much so that it stays as a bon and does not transform into a bane on ourselves.