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Yes, healthy competition is helpful. Any good education set-up will have an element of competition in it. Competition is a natural phenomenon. It is not necessarily good or bad but normal. It is helpful to students and to the process of learning in general. In my opinion, competition encourages the student to aim for the highest and best. However, it is important to point out that competition can become unhealthy when the focus is on the cream, say the ten percent of high performers at the expense of the rest. The competitive abilities or outcomes of students should not strictly define success as the case often is.

It is important to say that through competition, the system can identify and help the high achiever to move further up on the scales. Intelligent people are likely to be among the cream of any given class. Not only does this help those individual learners, it helps to improve the entire system over time. Healthy competition helps to filter the very intelligent from the dull and slow learners, among whom will be the intellectually challenged (the not so bright or academically inclined, whatever they may be called). The good education system should have a strategy for dealing with these various groups to the benefit of all. Ultimately, the goal is promotion of individual excellence. Individual success adds up to general and national success.

Adam Smith wrote, "Every individual...generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention" (The Wealth of Nations, Book IV Chapter II).

In nature, excellence in a competition does not define ultimate success. Another measure is required for this. That is, opportunity in diversity. One has to consider the various abilities given to individuals. Thus, a good education system should offer a variety of opportunities for learners, and if a student does not excel in one field, he might in another.
Rules for competition are not always the same nor conditions ever ideal for all competitors. Neither are the goals and results. A closer look at these factors is important in defining what healthy competition should look like.

Students from one class (or subject level) should compete among themselves for the top position. Those who make the top grade should be acknowledged (or appropriately rewarded) and those who do not make the

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