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Board exams

Recently the HRD minster Kapil sibal announced that there will be no board exams for 10th and he will be planning on not to have 12th board exams as well in future. This announcement has triggered to lot of debate in media, students and parents. some of the students are really happy that they need not have to study and get pressuried. some of the teachers are pitching in for continous learning and thus might get more control on students than earlier. But still there are lot of unanswered questions on having board exams or not. Every body are keen to know about all details from government on board exams.

Board exams are in india for long time probably we inherited it from the british. Primary purpose of the board exams was to assess the student's performance and provide feedback to the student.Board exams results are looked into before admitting any student into higher education institutes, before selecting a candidate for a job, etc. Earlier this system worked perfectly simply because there were lesser aspirant students and supply/demand ratio was at optimum level.

After Indian independence i.e 60 years, things have changed considerablly. Population of india has doubled, more and more student population have becomed poential aspirants for colleges and schools. The quote system ensures backward community students 50% seats irrespective of their results. Rest of the 50% is left for general merit students who score very high marks and sometime it gets so competitive that 0.25 marks or even lesser makes a difference in getting a seat or not.

Now, what would be the impact of not having exams? how would one give seats when 2 students are separated by just 0.25 marks? will grade system work for indian education system.

Giving a seat under quote system is no big deal in present situation, because demand & supply for quota candidates in not that much. but for general merit students have the actual competition , because of fewer avalibility of seats and, more and more students are competing for lesser seats irrespective of quote or general merit students.

from the above we can conculde that more students are pressurized not because of the exam, it is because of competition of getting a seat after your exam. And many parents push their wards because 0.25 marks makes them to pay lakhs of rupees for admission. So parents make students not to watch televisions, send them to tutions, stop all their extra circular activities etc.

From the above inference it is clear that lack of seats in colleges are directly/indirectly driving parents, students and teachers into artificial pressure and intense competition.

Now with current announcement from government makes me feel crazy and i am not sure what are they thinking about it ?. Cancelling the board exams would bring in curroption and illegal practices in admission process and major impact will be towards good students. Now parents would be forced to pay money to different colleges, managements and politicians to get a seat in colleges. How would one differentiate a A+ student with other A+ student. Government is also proposing an optional objective typed examination to decide who would get admission. If this is true, are they getting rid of exam? it is just changing the face of board exam into optional exam which would eventually become compulsory simply because of competation in getting a seat.

finally my suggestion to government to reduce pressure of students are.
1. Increase the number of seats in all good and average colleges.
2. Increase salaries of all professors and lecturers.
3. Target for one IIT, one IIM, one AIIMS for every state.
4. Tie the salaries of professors based on performance. Have a variable component system in pay structure.
5. Provide easy access of loans to colleges and students to increase capacity.
6. Make the system unbaised.
7. Open new colleges and improve standards of existing colleges with good principals,professors, lectures and other facilities.

I recently happened to read that students will be given percentiles and grades, i guess this would be decider in selecting students for a particular college/course. But still i feel we will be back to square one. Things would only improve when one reduce the demand/supply ratio.
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Comments

The Pumpkin King. said…
Dr. Palash Sen- Education is not just about doing away with the boards!
http://www.iken.in/Jcsworld.aspx
September 25, 2009 at 3:52:00 PM GMT+5:30
Kiran Venkataraju said…
Hey Dr Palash,
Rightly said. I totally agree with you.
September 28, 2009 at 9:42:00 AM GMT+5:30
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