I wonder if the powers that be are at all worried about the future of our children! In a matter of just 10 days, the chemistry paper for PU-II has been leaked again, even before investigations into the first leak could reach anywhere!
Just reflects on the efficacy of the PU examination system, when a paper leaks twice within 10 days of rescheduling, barely hours before the second date fixed for the exams. Can one imagine the intense pressure the students are put through, what with the Board exams being made to appear a matter of life-time of drudgery or otherwise, for many aspiring students? Why is the system so insensitive to the needs of the times?
We have created a monster in the name of Board Exams, be it the state board or Central one. Right from somewhere around middle school, almost all parents and teachers create a huge pressure on their wards, with imaginative scenes the result of failing in the Board exams. In fact, often, it is not even the fear of failing but the intense pressure created on young impressionable minds, of not performing well. Unconcerned about the capability of the student, or his aptitude in a particular field, we don’t even bother to analyse if the student is willing and aspiring genuinely for the field that their so-called “well-wishers” select for them! “You have to score 90 in your Board, or you will never get to…” that is the only refrain that a student hears for nearly three or maybe even four years.
Faults in the system
An IAS officer has been side-shunted. So much for the official “system” reaction to the leakage of question papers! Is that it? There may have been faults in the system, there may be some persons who manipulated issues to get to the critical paper once again, and what happens? You just fire the boss! That’s it! As if a suspension or a transfer is the solution to all troubles! Did any serious investigation get underway, to locate the source and the criminals involved in the leak? Barely. If there was serious will, things could have been resolved to a situation, where at least the likelihood of another leak could have been plugged, had the administration so desired, but then, who cares? Who is bothered about lakhs of students and many more of their worried parents? Why was no measure implemented to ensure that the papers are not leaked again? Or was that likelihood not even considered? The problem with our mind-set is that once a crime has taken place we all become highly complacent that it will never happen again. It is a matter of utter disappointment that the same paper was leaked again merely because the security measures were highly inadequate and there was no effort to prevent any repeat of the leak. How convenient to the planners of the second leak…and we are not even sure that it is not the same lot of people who were involved in the first one.
Imagine! Students who, already near total collapse under the intense pressure of Board Exams, are told not only that the exam is postponed, not once, but twice and the second time, it is barely a few hours before start. This is sheer mockery of the entire education system. A matter of great shame to those of us in anyway associated with education and learning. We have reduced our children to circus performers, a bunch of horses being readied for the next Derby! Run, sweat, study, slog! Or else, you will fail the derby and then be confined to the stables for ever. Faster, faster, faster… that is all we keep pushing our children to do. And if you fail, then prepare yourself for ignominy of defeat, because we shall grill you until you pass with the required marks. Oh God! What living hell has this whole system turned into!
Stumbling block
As such when the students are under such severe stress the examiners leave no stone unturned to sift them into grades, by setting questions that need really long and detailed answers as if the students are to write theses in those three hours on almost all topics in that subject.
The entire examination schedule is affected adversely now, as entrance examinations will create havoc on students, mark sheets will be delayed causing discomfort to students who apply for various professional colleges especially outside the state, who have cut-off dates for entrance document submission and would be least worried about the sorry state of affairs in Karnataka. Parents’ hard-earned money is at stake. For some it is a saving of a lifetime to get their wards in to a good professional college, but what if the stumbling block is the Board exam itself?
There is a dire need for all of us to introspect and review if we really need this system to see how much our students DO NOT know? Or what they can impulsively and instinctively vomit out on the answer sheets! Or why their lives, their entire lives must depend upon this one examination, the mother of all examinations! We have to tone down the hype about the Board Exam and make it less relevant to further examinations of professional college entrance.
There is a dire need amongst education managers, administrators and policymakers to sit to discuss and then take a call if we really need this kind of hyper-competitive examination scenario, or we can tone it down and make it less stressful and less competition-intensive. About time we all take a deep breath and slow things down for our precious students so that they are not overburdened with the pressure of exams. So that for them the Board Exam, well, it’s just another test of what they have assimilated so far, and not a matter of entire life ahead. Let us concentrate on educating our children and making them better citizens of this world, and to align their minds with good environmental practices and to imbibe in them joys of knowledge and not the fear of examinations!
(The author, Pushpy Dutt is a Bengaluru-based educationist)
(This article was published in the recent issue of Karnataka Today Magazine)
