Ever since i was a kid i always used to wonder why am i giving exams...what does it prove..i never found the examination system fair be it my kinder garten, my junior school, my high school, my engineering college or my specialisation i pondered over just one thing-what are exams meant to check? Does it check how much hard work you have put in? I know scores of people who hardly studied and still got the same marks as the ones who strived and slogged throughout.So that point goes out of question.
So does it check how intelligent you are? Here again i know many who are very intelligent by default, solving each and every question and problem they come across with utmost pleasure and determination sometimes even correcting teachers but then what happens in exam is a mystery..they somehow end up with very average marks. While on the other hand a lucky fella just back from his hulliganism and play studies a selected few topics and by the vigour of his lucky charm ends up getting all or most of the questions from the same topic and bingo he is the smart guy.
So are exams meant to test our luck and smartness? But then what are lotteries and matka supposed to do.
Can't we do away with this biased system which fools us all..We already have ample examples to show that day to day monitoring of the students in class assignments and in casually organised competitive events such as quizes and workshops would yield much better results and a much exposed generation. Free the already burdened new generation of the exam phobia and stop testing them for their mugging skills.
Such a good phrase of "each one teach one" was coined to spread education among the children who r not so privileged..Why cant we apply it at school level, senior students can be asked to take classes for the students of junior classes it will help the senior refresh his old knowledge and improve his personality and build his confidence besides helping him try and understand his topic thoroughly so that he can teach..it helps i am speaking out of experience here.
The students can also be made a part of a workshop wherein they are made to teach illiterate people in nearby underdeveloped areas and small schools..This again has multiple advantages where in the children from all economic classes can come together and interact and help build up each other as a student, a person and as a responsible citizen of the country. Start monitoring the students on these basis and we might end up saving young students from illnesses like sleeping disorder, stress , hypertension, hair loss, early aging and in the most brutal cases - suicide.
Many medical Colleges have made it mandatory for their students to work in rural areas for their house surgeonship phase,according to me its a great step.At least now we have doctors in these areas who are spreading the much required awareness about mortal diseases like AIDS, Hapetitis etc etc.Similar steps need to be taken on grounds of education to uplift it from its present level we need to follow these young doctors and try and make radiacal changes so that we can spread education and curb illiteracy one of the biggest bane of India.
Instead of written examinations why cant we have practical projects development classes which would help us get new evolutions at a much younger stage.. What good is it knowing V=I*R if i die of an electric shock not knowing how to protect myself from current hazard. But again that is what I feel and would like to imbibe among my students when I open my school not an A/C one but yes a school, i dont guarantee toppers but yes there will be scholars. India is a free country and we can all have views this is mine ,I will be happy if you agree with my opinion and even happier if you differ with your own.
Exams are not bad, our mentality is corrupt
ReplyDelete1). I think the only problem with the system of exams is that people do not take it in the right sense. If exam is taken for scoring numbers, by the very virtue of human nature, to find the easier way out (be it right or wrong), people would resolve to unfair means. Now, That degrades the quality of doctors and engineers passing out as toppers from big institutes. It is the students who have to understand the importance of exams in there lives, and take it seriously by not cheating. For a written exam might not have a long lasting effect on them, but the exams that life would put them through would be ones where they wont be able to leak papers or copy answers.
2). We blame the education system for conducting exams. We say there could to be better ways to judge a persons ability and skill. But, the kind of competition we are in, in todays world, there has to be a datum and a bottle neck to let only the best of the best go ahead in the stream.
3). Now we say people are lucky that they just read a few topics for the exam and everything clicked for them. Also, there was a more intelligent guy who in spite of reading everything and having an immense understanding of the subject could not score in the exam. I think its a big myth. Luck is nothing supernatural. Luck is just the sum total of a persons abilities in what ever field he is working. Luck is his professionalism and attention to details. Its his awareness of everything that is going around. Thats what we were asking the education system to give us, professionally sound and logically aware individuals.
So, whats wrong if the smart guy read only the topics he felt important. He was aware of the importance of the content he was reading. He was more situationally aware. Unlike the other fellow, who studied everything. If he studied everything how can it happen that he did not get the right answers in the exam. That just shows his lack of attentiveness to the subject.
4). Looking back into ancient times, we have had gurukuls, imparting quality education to youth. Its not that there were no exams then. The expectations though were different. People never had cut throat competition, to get into engineering colleges and medical schools. For them education was important for survival in adverse conditions. It was oriented and designed to impart enlightenment for a happy life. Now that times have changed, and we have evolved from the simple lifestyle, Education has become a mere prerequisite for people to secure better jobs. But the system is not at fault. The people need to be blamed. We have made our lives so complex, that we need people having that extra edge, to handle tasks that require supreme precision.
5). No one would ever want to get operated by a surgeon who can’t hold the stethoscope in the right place. No one would let an engineer who doesn’t know V=I*R(thats just a basic equation thought), go ahead and work on multi million dollar aircraft, endangering the life of the pilot and the people. That is why exams and interviews are there. To separate the cream, milk needs to be churned. Finally Its the better guy who survives the grit and grind.
6). In todays world, Survival of the fittest needs to be amendment to the survival of the smartest.
Being said that, i would like to define smart as not someone who can manage a way out of situations by manipulating the norms, but someone who can stand the toil of the test, who can bear the heat of the furnace and emerge shining as gold.
I rest my case with the story of two mice. The two mice fell into the bucket of milk. one of them gave up all hope to survive and drowned cribbing upon his fate and luck. The other mice was “SMART”, It tried so hard to keep afloat that in turn it turned the milk into cream, and just walked out of it. Thats the difference between the people who get into stress and other disorders due to exams and those who emerge as winners.
very nice hypothetical situations being discussed here but when you set ur engines of ur plane roaring do u ask for the maintainers marksheet or is it the competence and skill of the person that you look for.. how do you know may be ur maintainer had failed in his studies at some point of time but still he is a magician with those tools in his hands...
ReplyDeleteI know and i m sure u also must be knowing numerous people who have been pathetic theoretically but wonderful practically...
whome do u call when ur million dollar car breaks down? an engineer from harvard or a mechanic from goregaon who you know would fix ur car better than any one else. why? the mechanic was a failure at school,he might not even be able to dra a block or circuit diagram of anything but he knows his job and may be much better than a million engineers his age and beyond who are theoretically sound at giving and passing exams and are sitting there earning good just because of that sole virtue of their's.
wen u speak of vedic times dont u remember how education use to be imparted? the students used to stay with the guru and were evaluated for the entire tenure of there knowledge imparting.
i am aware of a few people who were brilliant in class but due to small illnesses did not or rather either couldnot perform that well or couldnot appear for the exams and as a result missed out on their academic session. what do we do about them?
we should stop this trend of learning formulas which were made ages ago by people who were mostly not educated nor ever appeared for any exams.. half the patents in this world belong to uneducated people who were good practically...we educated people after passing all these exams can do nothing but admire what they have already done or make some A's and A's in them.
even computers can remember what they are made to remember the only difference we humans have from them is the application part i hope u understand and i wish that u dont so that we can churn this topic as the milk and take out the cream for the solution. thank you
“heera ko heera kehne se, kankaad kankaad hi rehta hai,
ReplyDeletekankad ko kankad kehne se, wakta kankad ho jaata hai”
Lets talk example. There are music systems available in the market. starting from the hi end BOSE systems to the lowest grade, chinese made, kachibo speakers. You choose BOSE for its quality, and performance,and the trust that comes with the name. Thats the difference between a car mechanic who has learned how to change the fuel filter by looking at his father and now can do everything with that car to make it work for you. Magic in your words. But there is nothing called magic, right. So your little magician’s trick would also last for not more than a few days , say weeks. What if 10 days after getting your car repaired by this little master you get the same problem? Wasn’t it smart to initially get the right person , who is trained to do the job , fix it once and for all, using quality spares, and accurate technology.
Thats the difference between your super gifted genius and the engineer at the work shop.
As far as the aircraft is concerned, I trust the system that it would not let someone unskilled inefficient to even come closer to the million dollar baby.
We blame the system that its unjust and unexplained to have exams, and that exams are doing no good but killing people by burdening them with stress and tension. We say that people somehow are unable to pass exams but they have great skills at work. Lets say we do away with the entire concept of exams. Now what?
how do we know the person being trusted upon with the responsibility of the sophisticated RADAR system on your ship would not get stressed and have sleepless nights, and hair loss and everything else, when the CO is shouting upon him and he is stuck at a point where the circuit diagram makes no sense to him. Is he any good now?
Everything is not about repairing cars and fans in minutes. We are heading beyond the galaxy. diving deep into the sea, and starting from making a screw to the ship, it calls for precision and perfection. Which can be delivered only by trained professionals, and people who display the ability to undertake responsibility. That comes from hard work. Being confident at what you do doesn’t always solve the purpose. You have to take the challenges, and prove your metal that you deserve to do that job and earn that money.
If you don’t want to call it an exam, its ok but finally the overall idea remains the same. To have a filter, which can separate the better guys. Every time you subject people to such filters, there will be some one getting under stress, people would buckle under pressure, there will be smart and deserving guys who would fall sick and wont be able to show their talent. So what?
do we go for another type of procurement process? Every option that you look at has to grade people in one or the other way. We cant just do away with the system of examinations.
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ReplyDeletecontinued...
ReplyDeleteIf you want to change something change the way education is being imparted. Try to change the outlook of people to stop looking at exams as critical times that would make or brake their lives. Try to educate people to do their best in whatever they face and by all fair means prove their strength and come ahead in the race.
I agree that there are people who never saw college, and never sat in any examination hall, and came up with theories that changed the world. Does that mean they never had challenges in lives. Exam is not about filling answer sheets. Its a concept that has always and forever would give this world a set of talented people who can take up tasks and perform as expected. you might feel philosophical, but look at the bigger picture. Life is battery of tests. everyday is a new challenge, every person you face is a different puzzle you are solving. Your scores are being updated in real time. If you are complaining about those 3 hr tests where you just have to write answers to questions which have been taught to you in some from or the other, how would you go about taking the test of life.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT!!!!
just one line for you my friend "go back to the article and read again" whatever ways i could figure out in improving the system have already been mentioned by me. i am not speaking problem here i m seeking a solution...i m not running a debate competition i m seeking ways to improve it...just tell me how to judge a student if he works very hard entire year, plays very well wins all quiz competitions but catches some sickness during the last ten days of year and gets rested and cant give exams...just 10 days n the 355 days n in case of leap year 356 days are negligible and his efforts are nothing.is it worth it my friend....ur BOSE speakers are not famous because of ten days,they got that name due to years of observation and performance...i m talking about the same type of evaluation...dont get emotional
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing about getting emotional. Bhavna jab vichar ban ke behti hai tabhi sach samne aata hai dost.
ReplyDeleteYou say that by not having exams and by letting people make projects, we can evaluate them. That the better guys and more deserving kids would get a fair chance. Tell me how far along in your project have you gone? For that matter out of all the guys graduating from engineering colleges, who have to submit projects, how many do you know who actually take that seriously?
Finding fault with a system is easy, you have gone a step ahead suggesting a solution. Nice, but think, when given a chance no one takes it. I remember my B Tech project. i never saw guys interested.
There are people who face challenges in life due to illness or accidents just before exams. If it had to happen at a preplanned time, say after the exams when no one has a problem, it would not be called accident. So what, if there was one deserving guy who lost an year because he was not able to show up in the exams. Had there been no exams and we were evaluating people on the basis of their skill at innovation and imaginative thinking, how do you guarantee that if this wiz kid had an accident, he would deliver the same. We cant keep changing policies for everyone.
You say examinations are bad. You say slogging your days and nights for scoring marks is not the right way. Tell me how do you differentiate between 10 guys with great imaginative minds. All ten are not the lucky fella that you had problems with. They are average people, all of them want to be an engineer in ISRO. They are told here is no exam, all they have to do is to make a model of a satellite. How do you pick up the best guy now?
One of them has to be picked, and the other nine would complain for their luck and illness and accidents. So we are back to square one. We changed the system but finally the result is the same. There is still that mad race to get to the top. Everyones got the afterburners on, everyone will stretch himself to the limit. Those who don’t emerge as winners would continue to complain.
i know many who worked during projects much harder than they did during any of the exams..and doesnt the same comment of yours apply to exams..how many people u know were serious about actually learning something rather than just passing the exams...how many people you have come across even remember anything of the subject beyond exams...exam was nothing but preparing for the 20 ticked questions from the book which was proclaimed important by the exams...dont flow with ur emotions and general tendency of differing just to sound different...kindly go back and check the stats of the colleges and tell me...a scientist in ISRO is not asked to solve some presolved problems from a book..he is supposed to use that analytical skill he derived during the process of learning to find out practical solutions to real life problems...and probably thats why we have so many scientists in the country at various institutions and u have urself seen so many who do nothing but open predesigned models and working equipments from other countries and just do what they have been doing all their lives---copy them...because while trying to become a scintist at ISRO and DRDO they slogged so much in mugging up things and copying them down on papers they cant do anything new
ReplyDeleteyou my friend are very good at the use of flowery poetries and hypothetical situations..but as always i request you to use facts for verses which you have heard or read from someone else,
n by saying that ur btech project people were not interested still people passed ur coursemates never studied still they passed this is what i view as a problem and seeking a solution for..isnt it a fault of the system...and dont we need to revise it..why do u want to stick to the old rules and ways why not think new think different and get a revolution