A child studying in a well-known metropolitan school took her own life fearing she would fare badly in her board exam. When the results were out, it was found that she had actually scored very high marks. Everybody lamented?her teachers, her family, expert commentators on TV, all of them. What a waste. This happened a few years ago, but it still haunts me. Was her death a waste since she had actually scored high marks? A sense of unease comes back to me this time of the year every year when we go into a collective convulsion over grade-inflation and unassailable cut-offs.
The entire school system seems to revolve around board exams and entrance exams that together regulate entry into higher education. As though schooling is merely a selection device for higher education and the privileges that follow.
Performance in exams being considered the sole indicator of ?good schooling? is very problematic. This notion of quality is scripted by the ?successful? metropolitan schools and their franchisees in district towns whose USP is ?100% results?. Then there are the teaching shops that multiply through every tiny market town and near every jhuggi cluster in metropolises, mimicking the superficial characteristics of ?good schools??drilling, rote memory, home work, tuition and so on. These are the schools that the poor send their kids to, spending sometimes as much as half their income.
Actually, good schooling should facilitate a variety of learning, like higher cognitive abilities and aesthetic sensibilities. Not a narrow band of attributes tangible to a paper-pencil testing situation.
Those who do well in exams are not necessarily good learners, they are merely good examinees. And what gets examined are largely bits and pieces of information, and much of these get forgotten soon thereafter. So, let us not hasten to conclude that inflated grades and high cut-offs mean higher merit.
A distinguished principal of a renowned undergraduate college once said he would any day prefer to admit in his college those with marks in the range of 80s than those stars who have scored 95-plus. What is the profile of a star school graduate? More often than not, here is one who, for three years or more, cuts oneself almost totally off from everything other than drilling for exams. Those critical one-dimensional years in the most formative period of life leave deep scars on one?s personality. The ?stars? are likely to be deficient in social skills, empathy and sensitivity. They may be good in short-term memory and analysis, highly competitive and are likely to be uncritical followers of instructions from superiors. They are however often poor in synthesis, creativity and innovation. Most of them have no clue as to how to deal with setbacks in life!
In the cacophony about high grades, we tend to forget the large number of people who have done pretty well for themselves though they may not have been particularly successful in exams. They have learned some basic abilities so crucial to success in life, not merely in work but in familial, relational and community spaces as well.
?The author is vice-chancellor, Ambedkar University, Delhi and former proctor, Delhi University
