Few days back I wrote about our Education system in our country, more precisely when I talked about surprise tests and their drawbacks. When we criticize a system, more often than not, people forget that mere exhibition of blatant criticism just adds to trash, when we criticize we must remember to provide certain solutions for the problems as well; that is not much expected from critics because most of them just shout what they hear rather than what they think.
About Surprise Tests – I’ll come to that topic a bit later. Currently let us deal with the topic at hand – Education and marks. From my own experience, I can say that I’ve seen innumerably many topics with this point, but not one, where there has been some constructive recommendation for replacement/amendment of the existing system.
I’d not vouch for surprise tests immediately. Our current education system, as I’ve told before, does not allow us to separate the best from the rest. I myself can account for many “good” students, who have scored over 94% in boards, have gone in to join the herd of the other ordinary students in their futures. Worse, many have fallen lower, and have not even entitled themselves to get a good degree (if that’s all that we care for in modern days) from a good college. What exactly classifies a student as being “good and studious” in school is essentially not always correct. Likewise I can say many students who were of the “not-so-good” type do marvels in their lives – and frankly speaking, here is a quotation:
My friend passed every exam and scored marks, of which I could only dream of. Look where he is now, he’s an engineer at Microsoft and I’m the owner of Microsoft!
– Bill Gates.
What does it say? Our education system emphasizes marks over anything else. I do not blame it, with the present system at hand, what else should be given more emphasis? Keep in mind that our system does not aim to segregate the best, it aims to propel the general student-mass to levels that perhaps they would not have achieved otherwise. Figure out for yourself, guys without a tinge of imagination, without an iota of interest to know more, guys categorizing the non-course knowledge as “useless and not needed” are the ones who, often (though not always) end up being board-toppers. The Ranchoddas Chanchar-type often ends up in being backward, and inferior to these guys. This is the exact point that I want the system to change. Only fools would cram facts that could be easily looked up in books. Additionally, just two hours in the examination hall is never sufficient whether a student has been “serious” in his academic year or not. Either way, be it with or without marks, this is guaranteed crap for sure.
For the moment, lets forget the argument about whether marks should be there or not. In the existing system, let us do away with the norm of handing tokens of merit and honour to the students scoring over 85% in terminals. The reason is two-fold and here are they:-
- We often end up giving credit to guys for their cramming ability, thus we are responsible for giving them the impression that you can do away with this cramming-habit (without much understanding ) always. I’m not that much against rewarding un-deserving candidates as of this. In a way, this harms and hampers the mindset of a developing and immature mind.
- Secondly, this does at times, destroy the confidence of the true “good and intelligent ones” – the ones that value knowledge over marks, understanding over cramming. If they see continuously, year after year, the students who come nowhere near them when placed under the true examinations, being honored for having the maximum cramming ability, they happen to get the impression – ‘they are right, that’s the right way to study, I must also start to cram and stick rigidly to my syllabus, and kill the inner thrust of knowledge’. This is deadly for the student community.
Things are not that bad in college days, however. At least, we have the independence to choose our own subjects and often, I’ve seen in many cases that colleges like the IIT’s and IIM’s allow open-book tests, which in a way is better than the cramming examinations we keep on giving n our schooldays. I actually cannot figure out the basis of the cramming habit that we students develop in our schooling.
Now the concept of marks – well marks have been an integral part of our academic achievements. Our modern society (as I keep on mocking every now and then) judge our excellence and intelligence (if at all, the ones who do this understand what being intelligent really is!) by having a glance at our report cards! Worse, I’ve seen many guardians proudly boasting in public, of the marks their wards have fetched in public! I still distinctly remember an incident of my schooldays, we were asked to write a short note on the Sundarbans, and we were allotted seven marks for that write-up. After the result was declared, I happened to have a talk with the guy who scored the highest (6.5), and happily discovered that he did not even know where the Sundarbans laid!!! He had been living in West Bengal for the last ten years by that time.
The pattern or kind of the examination in India does not allow us to do away with marks. And also, marks are not always wrong in judgement, but more often than not, they are. What needs to change are jotted down point-wise below…Read-on
- The examination should shift its emphasis from cramming to proper understanding in all subjects. The subjects of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics serve this purpose only to some extent! Subjects like History and Geography should focus more on what the students think of the past events, and benefits/disadvantages of geographical locations/aspects instead of being merely taught from the books. The teachers should bear the responsibility of correcting them whenever and wherever deemed necessary.
- Subjects that involve creativity should be increased. Subjects that deal with essays, letter-writings should be given more weight-age than other subjects at preliminary level. Regular practice of this kind should be made compulsory in all schools and at all levels.
- The results of the academic year should not concern only the two-hr papers in the terminals. Group-Discussions, creative writings, innovative ideas and projects should be given additional credit. This credit should be decisive in determination of ranks – who tops and who remain the back benchers. Extempore and debates should always be inculcated as compulsory subjects for all. Also, students who remain informative and well-informed about global events and other things should be acknowledged separately.
- That marks determine everything is a general philosophy and concept that everyone needs to change. The parents and teachers alike, should not give too much emphasis on the statistics and random figures written in columns on the report cards. What determines the progress of a child is his interest and thrust of knowledge and not the marks. As mentioned above in a different way, a student (no matter how much dull and inert he is) should have an interest to study. That interest should not be hampered because of his poor marks repeatedly each and every year. For those in schools, they haven’t matured enough to think differently from their parents and teachers, and when they see them repeatedly harassing him for the marks he gets in exams, things don’t take long to turn out as nightmares for him. (That’s when we end up losing a person who wanted to study and be knowledgeable, just like us, forever..) Students should be taught (that’s the word I use, mark it, “taught“) that marks are almost nothing, and they should not be taken too seriously. Easier said than done, I can vouch that this system of ignoring marks is something that will take a decade at least, if not a century, to be properly implemented.
- Finally, awarding of tokens and merits should not only concern marks in exams (no matter how those exams are taken). I’d put it this way: Merits and Tokens should not be restricted only to examinations, there should be equivalent rewards for the other things that I’ve mentioned above as well, like innovative thoughts, writings, art, group discussion and debating abilities etc. More importantly, the parents and teachers should not look down upon these rewards as inferior to the 90% marks-awards. The total of all these should determine who comes first and who comes last.
This is how the education system should take a turn if it has to change itself for the better. Seriously speaking, these are the abilities that actually end up mattering the most, even if you follow the routine way of getting to a job after passing from college, ask anyone of you who woks in the top companies like Google, Morgan-Stanley etc. and you would know for yourself, that they have stopped their recruitment on marks basis . You might be a Computer-Engineer opting for a job at Microsoft, you will be amazed at the way they will interview you during selection. 80% of the questions they will ask you will not concern your course, but they will definitely concern the topic of discussion – the questions will be not from the books aimed to test how well you’ve gone through them, but from the world of knowledge to test how well you like the topic in which you are opting for a job. Bookish knowledge has limited boundaries, true talent does not!