’Who won the first battle of Panipat?’ ’State Joule’s Law.’ ’State the Mid-point theorem.’ ’What is Newton’s first law of motion?’ ’ State the functions of the endocrine gland.’
These are some of the many questions that stare at the hapless student in the examination hall. The student, who may be a genius when it comes to reasoning, becomes jittery, just because he cannot ’learn by rote’.
Welcome to Indian Education! Er ... did I say education? Surely, being able to learn up a history answer which deals with events that took place when we weren’t even born, is not education! Today, examinations totally harp on the ’learning & reproducing’ (Dirty minds, pun NOT intended!) capacity of a student. This type of system fails to reveal one’s true potential. Hence, the million dollar question is : ’Are Examinations Necessary?’
Those who respond in the affirmative to the above question opine that in the absence of examinations, most students who were earlier burdened by the weight of studies, expectations et al, would now feel a hitherto unfelt sense of freedom and wouldn’t even care to study. And they they might get the same rewards as the few who sincerely study, and wouldn’t that be blatant injustice? Then, examinations help students to know where they stand and make them aware of their individual capability. Also, they say, examinations are challenges which bring about the best in the best and separate the best from the rest. What excitement would life then have without such challenges?
Nonsense! All that examinations do is to separate ones who learn like parrots and rely heavily on guides, digests and what not, from the ones who have intelligence quotients and reasoning powers. But ironically, the ones who can mug up answers gain success, while the truly gifted ones are labelled as ’Just another student’.
And if one says that examinations are a challenge, he surely needs to look at the various statistical reports which come in. Examinations are nerve-racking. Lives of students become worse than hell at the onset of exams. Enormous portions, parental pressures, comparisons with friends, rivals and others, which leads to jealousy and sometimes even rifts in friendships; and all for what? It all piles up. The result? Students even decide to end their lives, merely as they got 75% and not 85% in their tenths! And sometimes even when they get 95% in the required subjects in the twelfth, and not a 98% ! Only God must be 98% perfect ... and looking at the misery in the world, I doubt even that ...
Change it, revamp it, or just throw out the exams, but do something. Instead of exams which test you at fifty chapters in sixty minutes, there ought to be periodic tests. Also, certain topics of which we have no use in later life ought to be scrapped. Surely quadratic equations cannot make ends meet! Examinations, if organised, must gauge the intellectual and not mugging prowess of the student.
Students should be encouraged to pursue subjects of their choice. Imagine, a potential scientist won’t get admission into the Science faculty, just because he isn’t conversant with one of the regional languages! Thank God Thomas Alva Edison wasn’t born in India, else, we would still have been in darkness!