Today morning was no different. I woke up and treated myself to my regular habit of reading the daily newspaper. Like every other student these days, I scanned the paper eagerly for bits and pieces about ‘admission’ in various colleges. I also came across the article about 193 students or so scoring a perfect 100% in SSC examinations. I was shocked and so was I happy for all the top scorers. However, I remembered my SSC exam results 2 years ago. I scored a healthy 94% but my point is, why are some of us denied these privileges. For a student like me who toiled extra hours in school to win the inter-school cultural events trophy, this seemed like a cruel mockery of all my efforts. The trophies on my shelf seemed gloomy about how their worth was never acknowledged. Not only me, a lot of my friends who were denied these bonus marks at our time were bitter about this. I was lucky enough to get into a good college, but one of my friends who is an ace dancer had failed to get into a top college by 1%
Such over the top decisions may seem like a boon to some, but for the ones who were left shattered at their time find it hard to appreciate this sudden turn in fate. Our state board education system seems like a circus to us and yes, we are the jokers.The poor jokers who make people laugh and pretend to be happy; but once the mask falls, the story unfolds. We realize that when we stand in admission lines in top colleges. We, the unsuspecting victims of mood swings of our Board Paper examiners. We, the state board students who are expected to pull off inhuman feats such as remembering each line of our textbook and memorizing it. We, the poor students of state board who have no provisions like ‘moderation’ of marks. The funny thing is, ‘moderation’ as a word means avoidance of ‘excess’ of marks. I’m sure you do get the irony The sudden revival of NEET or scrapping down CET or reintroducing the scheme of extra marks for arts and sports or stopping spiking of marks for CBSE and other boards are glaring examples of lethargy that prevails among authorities in our education system. There is nobody to stop them or to overrule their decisions because sooner or later, the ordinance will be put to action.
The reason behind this long rant of mine was to remind the person reading this that when you print stories of success and hard work, there are people whose voices are unheard, people who have toiled the same but denied their share of marks due to unruly exemptions, people who desire and deserve seats but lose them out due to preference for ‘in house’ candidates and that too without considering their percentage or marks, students with parents who blame themselves for not living in a place with a good CBSE or ICSE school. We are the silent mourners of fate and we resign ourselves to it.