Sibal’s new mantra

The year was 2000, and we were all tense about our board exams, which were beginning in two weeks. All of us were caught between optimism and tension regarding our preparations. One evening, I received a call from a classmate — who had an excellent academic record throughout the year — telling me tearfully that she would miss the boards as she had chickenpox and would be confined to her home for the next month or two. The memory of that day suddenly resurfaced when I saw human resource development minister Kapil Sibal announce on television that the government had decided to make CBSE class X board exams optional from the next academic year. Instead, there would be a system of grading that would judge the student’s performance from class IX onwards. I immediately thought that had such a system been in place at the time when I took my boards, it could have saved my friend a year. Sibal’s plan could possibly be one of the most visionary decisions taken in the field for education in the country, though many people have reservations about it. Over the years, school education in the country has been focusing on making students pass exams without considering whether they have learnt anything. The state of affairs seemed to be tailor-made for publishers of guides and owners of coaching institutes, the last resort of lakhs of nervous students. One has to see the sorry after-effects with helplines and counsellors trying hard to help depressed students. Every year a few commit suicide after faring worse than they expected or failing in the first big ‘make-or-break’ examination of their lives (that is what they think or are made to think). The grading scheme seems a sensible ben­chmark, as it will give more weightage to internal assessment and aptitude, rather than learning by rote, but the government needs to ensure that it achieves its objectives