The Education Minister Kapil Sibal is in a hurry. Notwithstanding the fact that Education is a Concurrent Subject (meaning decisions can be taken only by the Centre and the States together) he has gone about tinkering with the system by abolishing the Class X exams (or making it 'optional', whatever that means) to reduce the stress of the students.
This is just treating the symptoms. Stress is an effect, the cause of which is not the Examinations.
The Japanese have mastered the art of Root Cause Analysis using many tools like the Fish Bone Diagram or by simple asking 'Why' five times. Our honourable minister has not even contemplated asking 'Why' even once.
If he cared enough to dig deep into the problem, he would have found out many things wrong with our schooling.
The syllabus is outdated. The system is extremely rigid and regimental. The teaching methodology is archaic to say the least. The student-teacher ratio is 1:50 in many of the lower classes, whereas it should be 1:15. The syllabus is too heavy at the primary schools. Added to it is the dreaded load of homework. Children hardly get time to play. They rarely indulge themselves in hobbies. It is a common thing to hear kids 6,7,8,9 to say that they are busy- with home work and exams. And I am talking about students studying in good schools. The plight of the Government Schools that take care of 70% of the students is pathetic. The infrastructure is poor, there are inadequate teachers and the system do not attract good teachers.
It is ridiculous that all the Children have to study the same syllabus of their stream, whether it be State Board or CBSE, till they complete 10th. A 15 year old is much more aware than what we were in their age. They have clear career choices. They should be encouraged to experiment at a much earlier age.
It is proved scientifically that the best time to learn languages is till one is 12. The other hard skills can be developed after that. Of late we are ignoring language and humanities. This is reflected in 99% of our students graduating without being able to read or write adequately. I teach many MBA students who have studied in English medium and are in mid 30s. Most cannot write one paragraph without a grammatical error in English. And their command over their mother tongue is still woeful. Why is it that we do not give an option for the students to study psychology, philosophy, music, arts in depth in the school. Many want to do that. It is not possible to study these subjects once they are in the College, for if they do it then, they will have to have a career in that stream, which they may not want.
My recommendation is to have common subjects till the 6th standard and give the students an option of minor subjects from 7 -10th. For eg: let us have 8 subjects of which only 5 will be evaluated. The balance optional 3 has to be done but there wont be any evaluation. But the student needs to show a certain level of proficiency in their optional subjects. This will ensure they learn this with enjoyment.
Finally, the instructor led lecture mode and learning by rote has to be scrapped from the LKG. Students should learn through experimentation. Kerala Government came up with a stunning plan to come up with a creative teaching methodology a decade back, but lack of commitment and prior preparation did not allow it to reach its logical conclusion.
We do not want our education system to churn out mediocre students who dont learn leadership, empathy, social awareness, communication skills or in general soft skills. What we want to create is a society that is vibrant with dynamic, inquisitive, decisive, knowledgable, risk taking young people who are multi faceted.
Making Class X examination alone is not the way forward.
