Class X exams - Schooling in India - an experience or a certificate

Class X exams - Schooling in India - an experience or a certificate

"Specificity destorys Harmony" said a Chinese Sage. 

This piece considers the much talked of attempt to do away with "pass - fail" in CBSE schools. Probably nowhere is this truer than in our assessments of each other. Fallible as we are, our assessments of each other are incomplete, poor and inadequate. We are prone to see what we wish to see and tie these perceptions to facts whcih we notice. 

Probably no where is Specificity destrutive of Harmony than in the handing down of marks to young citizens called students in school - yes handing down, make no mistake, from lofty heights by human beings who are as fallible as you and I. A small story illustrates this point extremely well.

A hard working villager found a new master. He was a qucik worker and did all jobs with astonishing speed. He could chop wood, dig pits for planting trees reapir the fencing, carry huge sacks and stack them. The master was pleased at having found such a worker. One day a few sacks of potatoes from the field were given to the worker. He was instructed to sort them, separating the good ones from the bad. He was sure that this would be an easy job for his capable worker. In the evening he found the worker still just halfway through the sack. On seeing the landowner he folded his hands and said, "Sir, give me as much manual work as you wish to. I will be happy to do it. But please do not give me this job of deciding which potato is good and which bad. This work has been very stressful for me. Any work but this!" 

If it is so difficult to see the inside of a potato, how much more difficult to see inside a human being!                

Schools offer experience and opportunities. We need to know what this endeavour means. We try to know what students have learnt to find out if the teaching has been effective. And if it has not, then we fail children in school! If the child's circumstances are such that he or she cannot study well at home, then we fail the child! We regiment the children with uniforms and are sure that this will make them feel better and do better! How are we sure that this is the right thing to do? We are sure because this what we were handed down and this is what we accept. 

Our memories are short and dont go before 3 generations, certainly not 150 years. It is almost as if that time did not exist. We dont remember for a moment that early schools in all parts of the world did not have pass or fail. People learnt and then went on to use whatever they had learnt in their lives. The church schools, the pathashaalas, the madarassas and gurukulas were all like this. And every studio and artisan's workshop. And suddenly, the magic hand of industrial revolution, drove most of these into oblivion to be replaced by the 'graded, school, the 'uniformed' school, the 'pass - fail" school, the "specific" school - the 'factory' school.

The age wise segregated classroom is a creation of very poor imagination. Nowhere in the world do we find living things of the same age clustered together naturally, except for the brief moments - like when turtle hatchlings head for the ocean. Human society has managed this accomplishment - to convince all thinking human beings that this is the ONE right way to educate children. We do this knowing that never again, after school, will people of the same age cluster, except at brief reunions. We have to accept that the school, as we know it, is a flawed design, however nostalgic we feel. In fact the present structure survives on nostagia and has defied any attempt at reordering.

Learning is a magical thing, a potent and mysterious happening. Blaming, particularly the young, punishing them for not learning what we wish to teach them is such a limited action. Saying "pass or fail" is bad enough. Tearing a student away from the social fabric of the classroom is an even worse act of aggression. If we accept the mystery that is man, the magic that is learning and that the future is something we dont know, we must reconsider the choices we have made as a nation, as a diverse group of 1 billion, as humanity.

Life is an examination, a test of one's understanding, skill and inner fibre. Each situation we  challenges us with an inner conversation.  We each have a watchful eye, our own eye, observing the responses we bring forth. Our watchful eye knows where we made an error of judgement, where we were not alert and where we were full of fear ... Each situation educates us. This was called swadhayaya. 

The school and its processes subsumes swadhayaya, the teaching of the self by the self, and hands this authority outside. The authority outside can instruct, can create oportunity and design experiences but cannot ensure learning. The authority outside can punish and castigate but not ensure a well learnt lesson.

It is wih this background we must consider the much talked of attempt to do away with "pass - fail" in CBSE schools. Society and human beings move in strange ways. One of the best ways to move and change is to recognize that a system is not working because it does not pass the standards we wish to see. Today in search for social and institutional mechanisms that do justice to all, not most or majority, we need to discontinue some handed down practices or to modify them. Further, the restraining of one approach creates room for other approaches to express themselves. 

If the exam as a fearful threshold sheds its terrifying mask, then students may breathe easy. On the other hand they may also feel a bit disoriented, as will their parents. This uncertainty, or break in procedure, is sure to raise anxieties about college admissions and higher education, and also foster conversations about meaning and purpose of school education. 

School Education has begun the slow and definite redefinition towards 'schooling an experience', for each student by right, containing within it a choiceless dignity at entry and exit and during schooling, for each and every student. It is important that the process of schooling empowers and does not disempower, invalidate a single student. The present conversation about school exams is underscoring the fact that a large number of children experience disempowerment through schooling, particularly through examination assessment.

Is this the only solution? Are there not ways of improving our examinations? Do we have to abandon them altogether? Will we be able to distinguish between students who are capable and those who do not? The answer to these questions, at the moment seems to be -- 

"There are surely better ways of conducting an examination. However, for a nation such as ours with 1 billion people and the diversity that is seen in only one other nation, with a bursting population of youth, the last thing we can afford is rampant in validation of our youth. It is important to leave each student with his or her dignity intact. Since we have entered the zone of lifelong learning, the value of the 10 standard examination, in fact all examinations, has definitely diminished. The daily life of any worker will test what learning the worker has, more important, how open is the worker to new learning."

Looking back on this situation from 10 years hence, I'm sure we will think it's commendable that our nation could even conceive of such a far-reaching step. It is also true that no real change happens without some discomfort and realignment in our thinking.

Aug 2009