During my English exam recently, the topic for the general essay was “Deterioration of the standard of education in Tamil nadu and methods to improve it”. I heaved a sigh of relief (because at last, we had been given a topic for our age and not stupid ones like “My hobby”, “My family” etc). So while others were breaking their heads over what points to write, I was doing the same over what not to write. My head was so crammed with ideas and this was a perfect opportunity to vent my frustration. And this was indeed perfect, because the reader would be the actual person concerned with the topic, my teacher! And hopefully, there would be some change in her attitude and others’ too after reading my essay. And so, I began.
In my opinion, the most important reason for this deterioration would be Board exams. Due to the board exams conducted for the 10th and 12th grades, many schools omit the portions of the 9th and 11th grades and the students end up learning the same portion for 2 years. Schools want to improve their reputation and flaunt the marks scored by their students in the Boards and thus, the student’s welfare is in jeopardy. Students are taught only the 10th and 12th portions and as a result, they are ready only to face the board exams. They are not ready for the big picture. They can’t get into prestigious universities like IIT because they fail miserably in the entrance exams conducted by those institutions. This is because board exams do not test our knowledge; they test how well we can mug up the entire book. Also, students do not know how to apply the theory that they learn. Practical examination is of no or negligible importance. The reality is so much different from how things should actually be!
The syllabus is never revised. As a result, we are still learning how companies used to distribute the shares around 10 years ago in Commerce and not the present method. When we asked our teacher why the syllabus had not been revised according to the present scenario, she managed to dodge the question by saying that “It is important to learn history, right?”!!! Accepted, there is nothing wrong in learning how things used to be, but isn’t it more important to learn how things actually are??? To that, I think she had no answer!
Nowadays, students become slaves to even language guides. The main object of a guide is surely to just "guide" the student! We can maybe use the guide for improving our grammatical competency, vocabulary, etc. But students learn even essay and paragraph questions from the student guide. The object of conducting an English exam is to test the grammatical competency of the student and see how originally he can reproduce a poem or a prose piece. But as students abuse the guides, they lose their originality and fail to get the fluency of the language. I have seen my own classmates mugging up even the side-headings of the essay questions! The situation cannot get more pathetic.
Some teachers have the bad habit of asking the students to learn only certain questions from certain lessons as in the blue print given by the Board of Education, it is prescribed so! This is atrocious. We are not learning only to get through the Board exams. We have a world to face. But my own teacher told us “It is enough if you learn 10 mark questions from these lessons and 20 mark questions from those lessons ma… Don’t waste your time learning everything”!!! My friends and I were totally appalled. Is this what a teacher is supposed to say? “Don’t waste your time learning everything”? No wonder the standard of our education is going down the drain…!
We were also asked to give some suggestions to improve the standard of education. I gave the following:-
1. Students, parents and teachers must change their attitude towards exams. We are not learning for the sole purpose of getting through the Board exams. The object of learning should be “gaining knowledge” and not “gaining marks”
2. Exams should be conducted in such a way that they test the originality of the student. Questions should be asked not only from the exercises given in the text book, but also of their own. Only this will test the knowledge of the student.
3. Language guides should never be encouraged by teachers. Students should be encouraged to write on their own. After all, that is the point of conducting an examination, right?
4. Blue prints should, first of all, not even be made. The object of conducting an exam is lost when students learn just what is given in the blue print.
5. The syllabus must be revised regularly. Many changes could have been brought about but because of the prevalence of the old syllabus, the students may fail to get updated accordingly.
Give me some sunshine, give me some rain; give me another chance I wanna grow up once again. But if this condition prevails I am not sure if I would want to ‘grow up once again’.
Thus I concluded my essay. I was extremely satisfied with it and was convinced that I was going to get at least 8 on 10. But in spite of writing the truth or maybe because of it I got just 6 on 10!!!
(Title: Courtesy-Vaagdevi)
