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ShareThe teaching fraternity has by and large welcomed the decision to make the class X CBSE examinations optional. The decision is being heralded as an opportunity to raise the bar of education, where children can learn for the sake of learning and not for the sake of examinations.
It is also being viewed as a step towards revolutionising the secondary school system, which was fraught with a fear psychosis regarding the examinations. As adolescents, the students may not have the capability to deal with the kind of stress that such board examinations create. The class X boards resulted in a year of dread for both the students and parents alike. The children are of their youth for a year, leaving aside their hobbies, sports and creative activities. They live a gruesome, nerve-racking year, beginning their day in the wee hours of the morning and ending in the long, weary hours after midnight.
A normal day in the life of a class X student begins at 6.00 am, to get ready and catch the school bus at 6.45 am. After a hard eight-hour day at school, packed with academics (since most schools remove all frills for the year), the student returns home at around 3.30 pm. A quick lunch and he or she dashes off to tuition classes for mathematics, science and English from 5.00 pm to 8.00 pm. On some days, the tuition classes extend beyond 9.30 pm. Special practice classes are held on holidays and Sundays. Late nights are for school homework and preparation for tests at the tuition classes. The student typically goes to sleep well after midnight and wakes up at 6.00 am for the next day of school.
This yearlong stress and acute pressure are further heightened in the months from December to March, when the schools conduct up to three pre-board examinations to ensure better results in the finals. The nervous tension and trauma can be trying for the best among us. At 16 years of age, the students may not have the wherewithal to deal with such pressure, and the irony is that such an ordeal is only for securing admission in class XI in the same school.
The class X board examinations were created primarily to facilitate an education system where the students can opt for vocational courses. However, the concept of vocational courses did not quite pick up, since the job market still valued and gave credence to graduate degrees.
Students who passed the class X examinations with vocational courses were given second-rate treatment by most recruitment boards. Since the concept of vocational training did not receive the attention that was intended, the CBSE class X external board examinations clearly became a no-gainer.
Since the decision to make the class X board examinations optional was announced, parents have been concerned about certain issues: Will the schools loosen up on their responsibilities, will the children study if there are no examinations, isn't a little pressure always good, is the CBSE going the right way etc.
While there may be different ways to look at these concerns, on thing is for certain, that in the absence of pressure and the fear of marking, the children will learn better and in a more creative manner. The focus on learning will stay where it should be, at knowledge leading to wisdom.
The concept of continuous and comprehensive education is not entirely new; some schools have been following it up to class VIII. The CBSE is also gearing up to conduct workshops to train teachers and principals across India and abroad in the months of October and November, in order to implement the new assessment method. The implementation schedule for the new pattern covers nearly 18 months and so, gearing up for this change does not appear too difficult.
Though there is now a feeling that the pressure of the class X examinations will shift to class XII, and the choosing between the commerce, science and humanities streams after the class X examinations, which till now was done at the school level, can lead to discontent, certain facts indicate otherwise.
Most colleges offering professional courses give little importance to the class X results. Aptitude tests decide the fate of the admissions of professional schools, the only prerequisite being that the students must score at least 50 per cent in the class X boards. A system of internal marking or psychological aptitude tests can form the ground for choosing streams for class XI too.
