Holding up educations' torch - Kapil Sibal

And so it happens, that Kapil Sibal feels that the 10^th Std board exam needs to be scrapped and a more lenient system of assessment be introduced. I am appalled at the fact that there are several parents as well as educationalists who feel that this is a bad move. For one, I would like to clarify that Kapil Sibal is talking about the removal of 10^th Std BOARD Exam, and not the exam in itself. He is talking of a more sensitive style of assessment.

It doesn’t take Einstein to know that while the Indian education system is quite advanced, its methodologies are primitive. Take for example, the State board, through which I did my High School. What was taught to me in high school was long over in CBSE board that I had been in during my Higher Primary years. Moreover, the syllabus being taught was also the same one my aunt, who is 14 years older than me had studied. So would you say that the system is flawed? I would think so. The Indian education system is based entirely on studying by rote. The use of thinking, imagination and a practical understanding is never there.

Several educational heads came out in today’s papers saying that if there are no 10 STD board exams, how will we assess a student’s aptitude for the course he is applying to. If admissions were were so aptitude based, why is it that the overall percentage of the student is taken into account. Why not look at only the percentage or percentile (if it comes to be) of that particular subject? And if aptitude were so important, why are there payment seats and management seats where students who have no aptitude to wash dishes too get seats.

And the same goes forward in college too... In the run up to my PUC exams, I was coached separately along with a few others since we were thought to have the potential to bring ranks into the college. And the first thing that was told to us was, don't try to write answers with your own reasoning. Stick to the book as far as possible, that is what will earn you a rank. There is only a certain level with which you can stick to the book, following which you need to use your brain. Needless to say, I did not get a rank.

Another example I would like to cite here is that of my journalism lecturer when I was doing my BA. She was a Masters gold medalist in the subject and she taught the whole thing from the notes that she took down in her college years!!!! We had a college journal to bring out as part of practicals and when a classmate wrote a creative piece which carried a description that said "as beautiful as the Kohinoor", she called my classmate to the staff room and asked her if the Kohinoor was a place in Kerala!!!!!!!! and was very serious about her question.

So was it aptitude that got her the gold medal or the rotten education system that assesses students on the basis of how much they can memorise their textbooks. Very few of the students who rank high in their studies carry with them the expertise to function in society without being spoonfed.

Education should be about preparing your child for the world and not bogging them down with books that carry information, that in all honesty will hardly be of use to them in the future. One teacher in the papers today said that students decide in 10th std what stream they want to follow. I beg to differ, when a student goes to a college with his percentage, his seat is decided based on which subject he has scored higher marks in. Such school administrations are the reasons why students with a aptitude for arts are forced into science simply because they may have scored more in those subjects. Or a student with a penchant for science is denied a seat because his overall percentage was not near the cut off mark simply because he scored lower in the languages.

People wake up... its this very same educational system that has led to parents thinking that the higher the marks, the more intelligent my son...