WITH OR WITHOUT EXAMINATIONS, LEARNING MUST GO ON!
The recent news about the examinations at the secondary level being made compulsory for the students rather than being optional, by the National Board in India has found its due place on the headlines of many newspapers and e-news channels. Possibly, it had found the same place when the options were granted earlier. Thus, either way, it has a news value and has provided the much-needed opportunity to sensationalize a piece of information/decision, and, at times, creating an opportunity for a debate. Of course, any news which could be sensationalized is an input to a TRP decision. Hence, no blames!
There have been many listed arguments in several platforms about the impact of the earlier decision –
a. They impacted the seriousness of examinations b. They liquidated the value of serious learning in the classrooms. c. The teachers took things lightly d. The schools were not fair on granting the internal grades and so on.
They are, as of now, not matters of debate, as the decision has been reversed.
Back to square one, the schools will start focusing on grade 10 examinations from the lower classes right now, the stress levels of the learners might increase, the parental desire for their wards to be at the top brackets of performance will enhance their anxiety levels and so on, thus opening possibilities for redrafting the same questions that were asked earlier, year before, which justified the reasons for granting the presently withdrawn options.
In the entire gamut of things, the real focus on ‘learning’ stands marginalized. It is important that ‘learning must go on with or without examinations.” Well, examinations may be an instrument, fairly or unfairly, to assess the growth profile of learners, (not learning). Learning is the key to the entire process orientation of the services rendered by an institution of learning. With increased thrust on informal inputs to learning, the challenges of providing effective learning environment, learning resources, learning instruments and the pedagogical scaffolds to the learning community call for constant vigil. Whether all these things work under the supervision of a ‘scare-crow’ called examinations or not is a matter that can be left to the individual as well as the infrastructures of learning. But learning must go on, and go on effectively, contextually, progressively in harmony with the living times.
In trying to debate on the wisdom of decision, past, present or the future, the quality and effectiveness of learning cannot and should not be sacrificed. The words of Alvin Toffler “The illiterate of the 21st century is not the one who cannot read and write, but one who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn’ puts thrust on the ‘continuity of learning’.. thus making schools and colleges as portals which provide the motivation and curiosity for producing empowered learners.. So long the process is healthy and systemic, examinations will take care of themselves!
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