People involved with educating the country's young generation has got reason enough to gloat over this year's higher secondary results. Both pass rate and the number of GPA (grade point average)-5 achievers have registered substantial improvement. Compared with the previous year's 65.84 per cent of pass, this year the percentage of pass is 72.47 under the eight general education boards. The number of GPA-5 scorers also rose from 34,721 to 48, 950. Overall, the percentage of pass of the 10 education boards including a madrasha and a technical board, is 74.70 -a clear 5.10 per cent higher than last year's 60.60. The number of GPA-5 achievers also shot up to 58,376 from last year's 42,894.
When there was a downslide in both pass rate and number of GPA scorers, an attempt was evident to pass it as part of attainment of quality. No wonder, this apparent improvement in results will make the authorities in charge of education smug. But has the quality really improved?
If education would have been on track, the commercial coaching centres could not proliferate the way those have done. Guide books and enormous volumes of suggestion books should have no place in the preparation for admission to the reputed universities. Thank God, the best highest seats of learning are still in the public sector. And those facilities are quite strict to get the most deserving candidates admitted. It is clear that not all GPA-5 holders are good enough to qualify for admission to the universities of their choice and those who qualify are not considered for the departments they opt for.
Competition like this is good at the highest level of education, no doubt. But it has its downside too. In class XII, science students had to appear for seven subjects with 1,300 marks. This is because of the inclusion of the Information and Communications subject for the first time. Already with heavy loads, students at the secondary and higher secondary level have little time to spare. This extra subject has proved to be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Policymakers, bureaucrats in particular, in the education sector have not gone by the suggestions and recommendations made by academics and educationists. This they have done with the structured -popularly known as creative method - question setting and framing the syllabi. When the need was to simplify and slim the syllabi, they have made it flabby and complicated for students at both the secondary and higher secondary levels.
There was no justification for inclusion of information and communication as a compulsory subject. This could be an optional subject. Those interested in pursuing higher studies in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) could take up the subject as an elective one. A provision such as this was there in the past in case of Higher Mathematics and Biology.
Too much experiment is being done with students at the lower and mid levels. The introduction of two public examinations at the primary and pre-secondary levels is a glaring example. Now part of the decision has been reversed in favour of not holding a public examination for class V students from the next year but not from this year. Instead, a public examination will be held for class VIII. That the decisions are preposterous is quite evident from backing out from those after a few years and staying adamant about holding the public exam for class V for the last time this year. Students who have to undergo such trials have to suffer needlessly for the caprices of those at the helm of affairs.
This year, marks are obtainable for students who have just come out successful in the HSC examinations. All these years, there was no such provision. Grade points average would have done for them. Now will the marks obtained count at the admission tests? If not, what purpose will the marks serve?
The fact is policymakers seem to have lost their ways in wilderness. The reason why they are behaving so inconsistently is that they have no clear goal ahead of them. No tunnel vision can address weaknesses and inadequacies in education. The need is to have a clear idea about the task to be completed over a certain period of time. Class IX should be the cutting point from where students should make their choices for what is called group. In preference for science, students will find their place in the science group and so on.
However, the clinching factor in this case is the selection of those who will make it to the higher education. There is no point heaping loads of subjects that will have no relevance either to their career building or research areas in future higher education. Those not gifted with talent for higher education should either go for technical education or general education. Spotting the various categories is what matters most.
It is because of this, there is need for highly qualified teachers. But when teachers are used to apply their skill to coaching batches of students and the system also allows it, education largely fails to produce the desired results. In an ideal condition, coaching and guide books should have no place in education. But today's good results are dependent largely on coaching and such books.
These are all negative developments and enough to erode students' confidence in themselves. If students have no opportunity to get their creativity flourished, the system is definitely hostile to education. But students here are talented enough to compete with the very best in the world. Only a handful of learners get such opportunities and come out in flying colours. Now the challenge is to create the right environment for encouraging unhindered progress of education where unburdened with syllabi, extra pressure from coaching and guide books, students can learn their subjects. Â
nilratanhalder2000@yahoo.com
Making education meaningful
Nilratan Halder | Published: August 26, 2016 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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