No board examinations get a 10

With rising number of students falling prey to depression, stress and in some extreme cases becoming suicidal, Kapil Sibal, the MHRD minister has decided to make the class X board exams optional. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will be the first to introduce no board exam for Std X from the academic year 2010, to make education stress-free for students.
To debate the pros and cons of the reform, we brought together a panel of stakeholders — including principals, parents and students. The panel had school principals from across the different boards such as Avnita Bir, RN Podar School, Santa Cruz (CBSE) and  Sunita George, vice principal,  Rekha Vijaykar, Guru Harkrishna High School, Santa Cruz (SSC), MP Sharma, director, GD Somani School, Cuffe Parade, Lina Ashar, chairperson, Kangaroo Kids Education Ltd (KKEL), Madhvi Pethe, principal, ML Dahanukar College, Vile Parle, Chhaya Shastri, director, chief strategic officer, MT Educare, Sudhanshu Sinhal, director, Sinhal Classes, Dr Anjali Chhabria, psychiatrist, Lata Nair, vice president, Parent Teacher Association United Forum, students Sanam Singh, RN Podar, Class X, Archana Bansal, a parent, and her daughter Bhavika Bansal, Lilavati Podar School (ICSE), class X.  The discussion was moderated by Ranjona Banerji, senior editor, DNA.

Rekha Vijaykar (RV): The idea of scrapping the class X exams has been well debated in the past. When Anil Deshmukh was the (Maharashtra) education minister, I had written to him about a similar idea. A student who takes an SSC exam should be given two options — either a school leaving certificate for attending, after which he can pursue vocational education, or if they want to pursue higher education, they should be handed out the score sheet. This way, those who are not academically inclined will not have to be forced to study for exams.

Lina Ashar (LA): Firstly, it is necessary for us to have a common system for all students in the country and there should lot of opportunities offered after class XII with subject specific interest areas. If that is sorted out, there will be a question about how to enter junior college. There should be a kind of entrance criteria for this. I come from an Australian background, where there is a non-stress kind of education. The first schooling is till grade VI and the second schooling is up to grade XII. At 15, students are too young to be streamed in to college. I think that should be sorted out first.

Ranjona Banerji, DNA (RB):  I was the first beneficiary of this 10+2+3 system, which was introduced in the late 1970s and without any vocational training centres being opened, everyone automatically went to college. Till date, nobody has asked me for my class X scores. Do you think class X exam serves its purpose?

Avnita Bir (AB): I think I was amongst the last group to take the class XI exams and then go to college. After that I started wondering about the rationale behind having these public exams. I feel only students who wish to pursue higher education should opt for these exams. As I said nobody wants to opt for the vocational courses and complete their education in the general stream. The rationale gets defeated. And then came the debate on whether we really need Std X exams. Std X exams are redundant. As an educationist and as a principal I have seen that when a child reaches class X, s/he stops learning. Teachers teach only from the point of view of the boards and there is no innovation, there are no activities for one whole year. Parents feel that the child should study more; teachers feel that they should get the best marks. And there is always a tussle I face. Everything is exam-oriented. We lose one year entirely. A child studies very hard for his board exams and they score very high marks. Once they come to class XI, they are relaxed, they feel that they have passed one board exam and now they can relax. The jump is very high. So in both ways we are taxing the child in class X, which is not fair. If the school has the flexibility of going slow and at their own pace, then it will be very good. I feel Std IX to XII should go on smooth, without any stress. Of course, it means a lot of accountability and responsibility from the school. If you are doing away with a public exam, then it is the responsibility of the school to ensure the quality is not diluted.

Chhaya Shastri (CS): I represent an organisation, MT Educare, and our main product is Mahesh Tutorials. Most people look at us in a way that we are from the coaching industry and because of the competitive exams, we can charge heavy fees and we make money out of it. We are actually here to make a small point that the stress during board exams is out of expectations of parents. The stress does not come from the child. Union minister Kapil Sibal is also suggesting a continuous comprehensive programme or a continuous evaluating programme, where students are evaluated throughout the year, which is what most tutorials do. We actually prepare the students throughout the year, so that there is no stress for the exams.

Dr Anjali Chhabria (AC): There hardly are any students who do not go to tutorials. Parents are pushing them to studies and students are smoking and drinking just to escape that stress. And from class XI, as somebody rightly said they are free. Nobody goes to college, nobody attends lectures. What they do instead, is they smoke, drink, they also dope. Students take up negative channels to relieve their stress. Then there is stress related to admissions. Students scoring good percentages are left without colleges.

AB: Our experiences say that children score very high in class X boards, whether it is SSC, CBSE or ICSE. And when they come to class XI, we see a sudden dip in their percentages. Those high marks make students feel that they can go in any difficult stream and they get in to science stream and they find it very difficult to handle the subjects. I think the marks do not give any indication of the child’s capabilities or ability to cope with a particular stream. Marks are quite illusionary, I feel.

LA: There is just one point I want to make about the difference between Australian and Indian systems of education. It is that there is a lot of research done there and data collected on what is to be studied. There are no tutorials.

CS: Tutorials are not for examinations. The need today is that families have become nuclear in nature where both the parents are working. They feel that they are unable to give that extra attention to their children’s studies. Besides that the formal education system needs to be changed. If the concepts and their applications are taught well in the school, there will be no need for tutorial classes.

PART-I (Part II of the DNA Conversations on exams and beyond will appear in
the Saturday issue of DNA)