Much Awaited Education Reform – Kudos to Kapil Sibal

The most attention-grabbing news of the day arrived when HRD minister declared to do away with the 10th board examinations in India. While this verdict was greeted positively by different state governments, the idea has harvested mixed reactions. This change is to be executed within 100 days.
As Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal ponders on the initiative of scrapping with the "traumatic" Class 10th board examinations, educators, students, and guardians gave diverse response to this proposed change. Many are not sure whether this transformation would alleviate trauma or insert additional anxiety to Class 12 board exams. While some apprehend that doing away with the Class 10th board examinations, would put in added stress on students to perform better in class 12th examinations, others anticipate that a substitute evaluation method could change the board examination overall.
My father use to tell me that in his years of education, 1st division was considered as a celebration time. I clearly recall that the times when I was in school, we were told to score “above 80%”. This scale has gone higher now with teachers and parents preaching their kids to score “above 90%”. I wonder where this scale will go for the next generation. During my school days, the pressure was sure there, but not as much as it is today. Today, I have seen children doing freaky things like fasting, putting 18-20 hours in studies and then eventually getting disappointed with their marks and finally indulging into self destructive activities. All this in the name of education?
I feel education is beyond mere marks and grades. Examinations should not be the solitary decisive factor to judge a student’s capabilities. This kind of education set up is followed in India only - in other countries there is evaluation over a span of time. Our students become accustomed to mugging up and ignore learning. Thus, when it comes to relevance they fall behind the race. The focus should therefore, be on learning and comprehension with the correct application of knowledge instead of the 90% + marks which most students run after.

High time, an education reform must be welcomed in India.

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