There is nothing more frightening for a student than the Board exams. No-one knows how the question paper is going to “test” knowledge, and no-one has any clue how the answers presented are going to be read, interpreted and marked by the examiners. Everyone hopes that justice will be done. But who knows what is in store for whom?
There are students who do well in their studies, but do not perform well in the exams. And there are students who are sceptical about their own answers, but are sometimes in for a pleasant surprise thanks to the power of the “unknown”. But even those with good scores in exams do not always score well in life.
Is there any “connection” between performance in exam and life skills? Life throws different challenges to different people. All the knowledge that we acquire through education may not be enough to understand the complexity of life. Success is not always “to succeed”, and “to let go” certain things in life is not always a failure. Our examination system has failed to address this aspect of life. Hence, our children are under deep stress and the agitated parents have resorted to seeking divine intervention.
Ask any academic how to get rid of this age-old, unscientific but convenient method. Almost all of them would agree that the terminal examination system should be scrapped. But what are the alternatives? Shall we try out a system without exams? If so, how can we “classify” and “categorise” students? How can we evaluate their achievements in studies? This categorisation is a must to keep our system operational. Our education system is meant not to identify what a student has within, but to know what a student lacks in so that we can “exclude” those students who we think are “not potentially useful” and “include” those who may “fall in the pattern”.
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‘Learning stations’
There are some important questions to be addressed here. Why do we need to examine the learning outcomes of the student and how can we measure them? In a system wherein all the students are treated as “a basket of apples” presumed to be having the same texture, taste and composition, there is no hope to look forward. We need to encourage and put in place a system that treats every child as an individual who is blessed with something “unique” and “relevant”, and the system of examination should bring that unique aspect out in order to inspire the confidence of the students. For which, we need to do away with the concept of “classroom” and move towards “learning stations” as is done in some innovative schools. Are we prepared to accept this shift?
Is it possible to let the children grow according to their own theories of growth and help them flower into fully developed dynamic individuals with a lot of passion to do experiments with life? The answer is a resounding “no”. It is so unfortunate that we put the child in a common category (read as “class”) to compare one with another to give the child a feeling that it is either “better” or “worse”, and either of this is equally dangerous. Can we let the child to be what he or she “is” without any comparative analysis by applying different algorithms?
The policymakers have to do some more soul searching in this regard. There are many innovative models in education that are being experimented in various countries and it is high time we got ourselves influenced by the positive trend. Unless the teachers and the parents who are at the centre of context in educating the children influence the policymakers and the system, things will not change for the better.
We may need more resources, time, patience, courage, competencies and wisdom to implement this plan. But we should strive to move at least one step forward in our long journey towards making our examination system humane and sensible. Until then, prayers are the only option.
sat.ansari@yahoo.com
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