Zoho's Sridhar Vembu advises India: ‘Ultra-competitive exam pressure on children will…’

Sridhar Vembu said that putting a lot of pressure on children at a young age can annihilate talent.

Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu said that a renewed mindset is needed so that we can focus less on exams and move away from putting "ultra-competitive exam pressure on children and young adults". In response to a FITJEE advertisement on X (formerly Twitter), Sridhar Vembu said that putting a lot of pressure on children at a young age can annihilate talent and make "zombified adults" which could lead to a "rat race to extinction".

CEO of Zoho Corporation Sridhar Vembu asserted that academic excellence is not the only parameter of judging talent at Zoho.

“India has to get out of this ultra-competitive exam pressure on children and young adults. This is one area where I would *not* learn from East Asia but instead learn from Finland which has a superb state-funded educational system that serves every child without such competitive insanity,” he wrote on X, adding, “Intense pressure at a young age all too often destroys talent and creates zombified adults. It is the rat race to extinction.”

He asserted that academic excellence is not the only parameter of judging talent at Zoho and informed that the company was investing in educational alternatives, just like Finland.

To Sridhar Vembu's tweet, a user wrote, “All this is due to the fact that most of our parents before social media age didn't have vision beyond government exams or competitive exams. But as we grow old and become parents people will surely get more options to explore.”

Another commented, “The sooner we have vocational training at a junior level the better. Otherwise parents would continue to push their kids towards engineering or medical just because it's a promising Career with potentially lucrative salary.”