Your marks in any exam conducted by some school board are not the true reflection of how educated you are!
What does 'Grades' tells You?
Education and Examination do not come along as a mechanism that would complement each other rather they do not say anything about the other. Marks based exam in an Indian school tells us nothing about you.
for example,
Ramesh likes to play chess and doing good in the game. He has represented his school in a national level under-16 chess championship. Playing the game of chess has inbuilt some skills in Ramesh. He is a good orator, confident in his choices. He is patient and believes in solving problems through dialogue and discussion. He strategies and plan before taking any task or work and do not lose temper at the time of stress and external pressure. All these skills he had developed through the game of Chess. Some of the skills he might also have adopted by seeing, observing others and experiencing different situations.
Kiran lives in Srinagar a the small town of Uttarakhand. She likes to sing, draw and write poetry and short stories. She loves science and loved doing science project and experiments with the help of her teachers and peers. She has also won a national level science exhibition competition and secured the third position in the event. She is very particular about what she does in her free time. Her father is an army officer and she had learnt to be very punctual and stringent with her daily routine from her father. She likes to draw portrait through pencil and her portraits have been appreciated on many occasions by the inter-schools and district administration. Kiran believes in following her passion and also curious about the future and talks a lot about the issues of environmental degradation and the use of renewable energy through her projects, portraits and poetry.
Now, If I tell you Ramesh has secured 89% marks in his 10th board exam and Kiran has got 93% and would also be shared who score what in which subject. Are you able to know Ramesh and Kiran the way better than has mentioned in the above paragraphs? look these marks definitely tell us something about examinee that one is good in academics or good in science subject*. You have the capability to do hard work and you can very well write what you have read, understood or memorized.
But the marks don't tell us that one has really understood the importance of any subjects i.e. science, history, Social studies in his life and how it is reflecting it in one's personality etc. Do these subjects are adding values to their life? It doesn't assess the level or layer of understanding. It's a rating between 0 and 1 and telling nothing about how one has scored that 1 or 0. It also do not tells you where to improve and and how to improve in your learning.
Final examination should not be a dead end and it is not
Education should have the process to indulge in constant and regular examination. But today educations means final examination and then the curtain falls. teacher teaches you for that final D day. Some of us understood the topic and able to write complete answers, some of us writes half of that answer correct and some of us do not write at all. And then after examination, everyone receives a mark. And that's when everything freezes.
if someone isn't able to answer a question of profit and loss from a mathematics lesson within a fixed timeframe. What does it represent? that he is not good enough in mathematics or to be precise he is not good at solving sums of profit and loss. There are many layers that are hidden and decoding that hidden layers of abilities and inabilities are very important to know about that person abilities and inabilities. A students good with number has inability to comprehend the text and the exams in our schools are text based assessment. there is no variety to it. It doesn't even check the concept knowledge of a students. It just check that the answer is right or wrong without emphasising on the process and thinking that had gone into solving that problem. Assessment today sould be testing the thinking process , cognitive ability and the ability to apply the concepts learnt to solve problems.
if we go into this more intimately, we will realise that the objective is not to able to understand why the student or someone is not able to solve that problem. What part of the concept he wasn't able to understand and apply to get to the solution. The objective is to reach a conclusion that mostly means nothing at all in plain language. No emphasis is given for evidence-based interpretation from the assessments rather than it just provides dead-end marks.
These exams don't give you a chance of knowing your mistake and improvement or error correction and some might validate it by saying that life also doesn't give you another chance so these exams are preparing you for the future in life. I think this is the biggest myth that some of us have heard in the movies, from the teachers, parents, relatives.
But the good thing is that young parents of the upper class or middle-class families are now being aware of this. They are sending their kids to the schools that hold all the opportunities for their kids. If this remains the case within 5 -8 years times things will be different. I am not sure if the pattern of taking and giving an exam would change or not but if the process of the examination remains the same as it is now. It will lose its essence and importance in the masses. There would be no hype and news when the board exam results will be announced as most of the population will discard this process to be a true method of understanding the abilities or inabilities of students.
The assessment system should have to transform itself even with the continuing regression of the teachers or the hesitation of the bureaucracy. Assessment should be a deep, flexible, contemplative and interesting and fun part of the school curriculum. This should encourage students to reflect and re-engineer their aspirations. If this is not going to happen very soon. I am sorry to say but there would be no value in schooling then. fast and global reach of internet would make schooling an extra curricular adventure in no time. Education system had to rebuild itself as an efficient machinery to provide quality learning opportunities in really simple and interesting way to beat the internet. Assessment system would be playing greater role in that and there is no denying that AI and ML would be a integral part to make things simple and fun for both teachers and students.
An examination should not be telling people that you have only one chance in life to learn and prove it rather than it should be telling people that one can get as many chances as one wants. It's just that one has to create those chances on their own and with their inner interest and motivation. The choice is not between do or die but do and do it again untill wrap your head around something.
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