Public examinations in our country, be it board exams or those of central Universities, are not student centric. They promote a feeling of entrapment; the stress on the student during exam season is akin to a jail sentence.
The last century witnessed massive socio-economic changes but our system of evaluating students is still suited to produce mere machines. The Indian obsession with exams is clear; the class X and XII board exam marks are the sole criteria for availability of subjects in higher classes and dictate access to a college post school, respectively. The paper follows an unchanging pattern and set of questions each year, thereby readying children across the country to sing the same song. The pressure to perform, lately, has seen a multi-fold increment owing to familial expectations and the media celebration of ‘achievers’ and ‘rank-holders’. The examinations have become another divisive entity in our socio-economic context.
This division is further accentuated by ranking Science, Commerce and Humanities in a descending order according to marks achieved. The idea of considering Humanities as not requiring an analytical mind has led to an insipid syllabus, in tune with the rote process, deemed unworthy of upgradation and excluding a creative churning of thoughts based on cognisance of varied views on an issue.
In history, for example, a micro-humanistic approach is trampled upon by an authoritarian top-down approach focusing on macro events, dates and personalities. A student indoctrinated with such methods will face a tough transition to an undergraduate environment that encourages an inclusive and a considerate understanding of larger issues. The absence of a ‘textbook’ or a ‘guide’ haunts the school topper in college.
The overarching, bureaucratic and inflexible nature of public examinations by universities further reduce the scope for creative thinking provided by individual colleges. In Delhi University, the administration is driven by an obsession to conduct examinations by hook or crook for final-year students amid the pandemic. The decision to conduct Online Open Book Exams (OBE) is extremely exclusionary and based on an utopian illusion that pupils across regions have a stable Internet connection. When it takes more than 50 attempts, across five days, to just fill the examination form on the university website, how will it be capable of coping when over 2.5 lakh students scan and upload over 20 sheets of paper at once?
The past five semesters and parts of the last semester followed a regime of teaching suited to attempt theory papers in the regular exam room-invigilator setting. The OBE needs a different skill set and a coverage of a larger, more varied set of readings. The students are now supposed to answer ‘analytical’ questions, according to a DU notification. Forcing the OBE on students is like training for marathon all year only to be asked to sprint.
Change the system
The buck doesn’t stop here. The entire logic of, ‘selection by elimination’ is clearly evident in the Civil Services Examination where masses are filtered out on the basis of their capacity to retain information. The system expects a candidate to be dynamic and possess skills required to handle societal issues, merely based on the ability to commit large chunks of data to memory. The proposed changes in ‘academic evaluation’ need to be an inclusive process involving wide-ranging deliberations among various stake holders for more reason-based measures to provide encouragement and security to students. The Indian education system needs to change to enable holistic development, encourage analytical and creative skills and make an individual suitable for various general and specific professions.
The writer is a third-year BA (Hons) History student at St Stephens College, New Delhi. Email singhdjay@gmail.com
