“These students on the left will have a bright future. They will embark on a journey of prosperity, working in fields of science and maths. The students on the left, I can’t help it, but you might be looking at a dismal future. For you, I cannot say. Your future is in your own hands.”
This was what my physics teacher said after distributing the answer sheets of our half-yearly examinations in my ninth grade, for he actually segregated our class into a group of two. Those sitting on the left were ‘worthy of studying science’, and therefore being of great help to humanity, and as the cliche goes, those on the right would suffer as they were condemned to opt for arts.
Fortunately, I was sitting on the left as I had scored the second highest on that paper, and was elated at the prospect of a bright future that my teacher spoke so confidently about. But today, after entering into the real arena of life, I think otherwise.
The fear around boards is ingrained in the minds of every student who’s a part of the Indian education system.From as early as sixth grade, prophetic exclamations narrate heroic (and dismal) tales of how good or bad students performed in examinations. Students were told about Darwin’s theory of ‘survival of the fittest’ – as if we were not preparing for exams but the Mahabharata.
And when you finally make it to tenth and twelfth grade and have to take the board exams – the whole focus is on how to get students to score marks when they should encouraging students’ interests and help them gain perspective. Therefore, the whole process of producing conscious citizens muddles up, and schools become factories that produce rote robots. Well, there are many of us who do swim through all the fear and pressure and end up getting good grades, make it to reputed universities, but only to get to know much later, the futility of the whole process. After all, we’re just another brick in the wall.
For two months, I taught English to 11th and 12th-grade students in a private school named Saint Paul’s, near my native place at Kuchaman, Rajasthan. I got a first-hand experience of understanding how the ‘board exam’ factor has a deep imprint on the psyche of the students, as well as the teachers because the reputation of the school depends on the students’ results in board exams.
On the first day itself, as I taught in my demo class, the principal decided my ‘rate’ and asked me how much I’ll achieve, in terms of marks, through my students. I was asked to take an exam every week and give questions and tricks that would help them take the board exams. Hence, any remark about the board exams would result in rapt attention from the students. The board exams being the yardstick of their standing in social life, their parents’ honour and their future.
There will be quite a few Sharma Ji(s), who might be upset seeing his son’s failing prospects in college despite great scores in grade 12. Let us break the myth, marks in boards matter – but only to enter a decent college. And once you are in, you come to understand the fleeting nature of your success and the exaggeration of ‘what it would be like’, on the part of your teachers. Such hullabaloo around the boards not only points towards our society’s ignorance towards the aims of education but also the growing market around the industry that our education system has become. Where teachers instill fear among students not out of care but because the school administration demands results – how the student fares in his life, being none of their business.
Since scoring in boards becomes a sort of social responsibility, games and other spaces of co-curricular activities are snatched by teachers to make students practice sample papers. The list of brutal acts in the name of board exams is endless.
I call it brutal, because it was brutal in those days for me, to be told by my maths teacher who snatched our only games period to tell us that “Boards exams are like god. They determine everything.”
Board exams are important, but it doesn’t determine your future. The irony of the situation is that our syllabus is structured in a way that it doesn’t run parallel to our lives. After all, we don’t use ‘sin’ and ‘cos’ to buy vegetables, and derivations to solve our problems in life. Good scores in board exams might get you a photograph in the ad of your tuition centre but won’t ensure that you’ll be able to make good choices when things in your life become difficult.
To all those appearing for their board exams and living in dread – take a chill pill. Take out time for things you’re passionate about, read books, watch something nice, and most importantly, live. There’s really so much more to life than these board exams.