CBSE rockets
I
have been associated with CBSE for the last 17 years, both as a teacher and an
examiner. When I completed just one year of teaching with that Board of
education I was appointed as an examiner. I hesitated to take up the duty and
informed the concerned authority about my lack of experience. “You have 15
years of experience as a teacher,” the authority told me on phone. He had my
entire CV in front of him, apparently. I was forced to join the duty. On the
very first day, I got just what I wished to avoid. As soon as I completed checking
the first answer script, I was ordered to be magnanimous. The Head Examiner as
well as the Nodal Officer (the authority who spoke to me on phone) re-examined that
script and showed me how I had awarded much less marks than the examinee “deserved”.
I realised that CBSE was as magnanimous as the
North-Eastern Hill University for which I evaluated answer scripts for a year
or two. I learnt the lesson quickly. I’m a quick learner when it comes to
things like this. I continued to be an ‘exemplary’ examiner of CBSE ever since.
I had learnt the trick: award marks wherever you can, however you can, for
whatsoever you can.
Students are happy to get 98%. Parents are
happy. Schools are happy. Why should you grudge anyone their happiness? Yet I
found myself agreeing with Bikram Vohra who wrote about this insane system
today in the Times of India calling
it the CBSE
albatross.
My best student of the Commerce batch this
year told me with a wry smile how she could not make it in the selection list
of a particular college despite having a percentage that would raise the envy
of quite many students. It became a stunning realisation for me because the
college where she was seeking admission was none other than my own alma mater,
the very same college where I studied for five years. I had got admission there
on the basis of merit though my percentage was abashedly far below my student’s.
In fact, with that unmentionable percentage I had stood at the fourth rank in
the admission list then, in the general category.
Those were days when examiners were like the
God of the Bible: eager to condemn. Now we (examiners including me) are like the
monsoon clouds showering boundlessly so that no soil shall be left arid. “Give everyone a chance to think beyond the
traditional occupations,” as the Nodal officer told me during my first
experience with CBSE. Yes, we are sending our examinees to the seventh heaven
on rockets of marks and grades. So, dear Bikram Vorah, you may have to change
your metaphor from albatross to rockets just as I changed my approach as soon
as I laid my hands to the CBSE plough.
As a CBSE Examiner, I too have learnt similar lessons. And the students who might not have crossed 70 to 83 in class 9 and class 10 till I taught them have now secured 88 to 93 in the recent CBSE results in English! I don't know whether to feel proud of them or call it my hypocrisy to congratulate them happily.
ReplyDeleteIt's not hypocrisy; I take it as sheer fun. Comedy, in fact. Bikram Vorah, the writer in ToI, makes fun of it labelling today's students as better than Shakespeare. He's right: we're creating students who can't even write sentences correctly though they score 98%! We're helpless in this.
Deletethoughtful interesting post sharing
ReplyDeleteThis is just one part of the problem that our education system has. The whole thing has to restructured to make it more meaningful and beneficial for the students, as well as make it more representative of the real mettle of each student. Now marks are no indication of a student's interest or competence.
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