This year’s Goa
Board examinations witnessed many HSSC
and SSC
students complain that the physics and science
question papers respectively were too tough. Many parents and students wrote
letters in the press, pleading with the Goa Board officials to be lenient
during evaluation. The anxiety that students and parents shared alike was so
much that it also resulted in an online
petition.
Such complaints
about exams being too tough or questions being framed “out of the syllabus” are
not at all new. In fact repeated
pleas for leniency come from students who mostly
attend private and expensive schools (in Goa it is generally aided private
schools), and who are provided with the best of facilities. Contrast this with
the public schooling system which is in doldrums; the largely poor students who
attend such schools don’t make such demands. Across India, good schools are
generally private ones whether they are aided or not by the government. These
demands for leniency – largely for science and professional subjects – expose
the serious problems with the educational system in the country and the state’s
failure to provide equal and fair education. In the end, it also exposes the
hollowness of the idea of ‘merit’ as a yardstick to measure academic
excellence.
Through the
whole period of schooling one finds very few parents demanding better quality
of education. Rather than demanding proper changes, one finds that students and
parents in fact suffer through bad schooling systems. Some prefer private (and
expensive) schools as alternatives, which are often considered better for
non-academic reasons. Despite there never being a sustained demand for better
public schools, parents still expect their kids to excel academically and will
go to any lengths to achieve this. To give the best to one’s children is not
wrong; the problem emerges when only those with means can afford decent
schooling facilities. The consequences will be serious as good educational
facilities are intimately linked to a better society.
The pleas for
leniency rest on deep fears that a difficult question paper will affect a
candidate’s chances of qualifying for reputed professional and technical
colleges. The petition
circulated by students in Goa was similarly concerned
with “percentages and careers”. We know that there are thousands of ‘middle
class’ parents
across India who spend lakhs on coaching classes so
that their children will have access to these professional colleges and the job
market. Indeed, the proliferation of expensive private schools and coaching
centers not only bestow prestige on the students and parents who are able to
afford it, but also ensures that high paying jobs only go to the privileged
folk.
This is
precisely what the periodic hue and cry regarding tough question papers
confirm: the complaints are not about the miserable system of education, but are
about the anxious feelings amongst parents and students for losing out on individual
success and personal gain. The logic seems to be frustratingly simple: nothing
matters except that the student cracks the exam. And why not, since the whole
education system is oriented towards cracking an exam – it is worse for
technical courses whereby colleges and coaching centers train one to answer one
typical question paper that guarantees results. A slightly unusual question
paper – fairly or not – causes panic as children are not encouraged to think
independently, critically, and to have sound awareness of the world around them.
Which brings us
to the question of merit. The access to expensive and exclusive
technical/professional colleges is intimately connected to the idea of merit,
as it recognizes only individual success in professional/science courses which
are valued over the rest. This is the obsession of the elites who identify as
‘middle class Indians’ and those that aspire to this class mobility through
their children’s success. Hence this merit can generally be achieved by only
those with the financial means and caste/class networks.
The inadequate
availability of publicly-funded, fair, and equal education and the simultaneous
promotion of merit and cutthroat competition is one of the causes for the
rising inequalities in India. The intense competition that private schools,
teachers, coaching centers, and parents promote not only lead to narrow career
choices being valued, but it also makes education extremely expensive for a
large chunk of the population. This would eventually lead to inequalities in
accessing the job market as well. Which is why, any idea of merit and academic
excellence celebrated and promoted during the time of board exams, and after results
are declared, ring hollow.
I do not want to
deny that Goa hasn’t witnessed any demands for a better schooling system. Movements
like that of FORCE
– Forum for Rights of Children to Education – that demanded better facilities
for all gives us hope for a better future. The movement championed by parents
who could not afford expensive private education, demanded that the government
support English as a medium of instruction as this would help their children to
access better jobs. The movement also rested on the fact that government or
public schools – where most of the poor people were forced to send their
children – were ill-equipped to impart any decent skills that would be useful
in later life. But the full potential of the movement has not yet been
realized.
In many ways it
appears that Indian society, riddled with considerable inequalities, hasn’t
learned to exist in communion with the less fortunate other. This is why, time
and again, one hears calls for leniency in evaluation during examinations, when
in fact one should have demanded a better education system and facilities.
(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 9 May, 2018)
