Recently, the education minister of the state of Maharashtra gave a statement that henceforth no student of SSC and HSC (Secondary school and Higher-Secondary school) in Maharashtra will see a 'Fail' grade in one's mark sheet.
Immediately, there were two contrasting responses to the statement. One, that appreciated the minister's move as a measure to reduce the burden on school students. The other called it as a move that would encourage and perpetuate mediocrity as it removes all disincentives for performing poorly while also eliminating any potential rewards for good performance. The detractors' arguments do have some merit as there have been multiple reports (see this and this) about deteriorating quality of primary education in India.
Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I am personally inclined in favour of eliminating 'fail' grades for school children. However, I also admit that doing so in the current schooling system will inevitably lead to disastrous results. So, what's the way forward?
I have witnessed at very close quarters what a 'fail' grade does to the confidence of a student. Not only the self-belief of the student is shattered, it can also lead to anxiety, depression, and in some cases, even suicides.
What does a 'fail' grade even mean in the schooling context? Is it that the student failed to learn something by the time the examination was conducted? In that case, is it being implied that the student won't ever be able to learn it in future? If a student failed to answer a set of questions asked in an examination, is it fair to assume that the same student would not have been able to answer a different set of questions more 'successfully'?
What I am trying to highlight is that performance in an examination is a function of the time of examination, the set of questions, and the circumstances leading up to and at the time of examination. If one includes other external factors like physical and mental conditions of the students, distractions, pen/computer failures, pace of answering etc., we see that the notion of 'failure' becomes more and more questionable.
In the management institute I studied in, a certain professor of a managerial accounting course believed in subjecting students to quizzes with extreme time pressure. A student was typically required to analyze a balance sheet and calculate missing values in ridiculously short times. While some students did manage to do quite well in those exams, a large number could not do so even if they were equally capable of analyzing those balance sheets very well. But the system branded them as inferior to the toppers by awarding them lower grades. This was an absurd method of evaluation to say the least and completely unfair to many bright students.
The current system of schooling that pushes students through a tiered system of grade 1 through grade 12 perpetuates exactly this kind of absurdity.
Imagine a race around a track where each runner has to run 12 laps with each lap to be completed within the same time limit. Failing to complete a lap within the stipulated time will result in elimination, or worse still, repeating the same lap until the runner is able to run it within the stipulated time.
Those who have witnessed an Olympic race for long-distance running will know that not all runners run at the same pace. Not only that, a runner does not run all the laps at the same pace either. While some runners prefer to start the race at high speeds trying to build a huge lead over others, there are some who like to start slow and then increase their pace towards the end of the race. Needless to say, there isn't one single strategy to run the race.
Our education system does not need to be like a running race. Education is more like mountaineering. The objective is to climb the mountain. The success too is defined in terms of whether the objective is reached. All those who are able to reach the zenith are deemed successful. It does not matter whether one takes a couple of days or a few hours to reach the target. It also does not matter what clothes, equipment, shoe, or tools the mountaineer used to scale the summit.
Our education system, unfortunately, is so focused on the process that we have lost sight of the most important aspect of it - the purpose.
Success of a student, just like the mountaineer, is in learning; not in obtaining top grades in an examination. A student must be evaluated on how much one has learnt and examinations must only function as one of the tools to measure that.
While students who learn faster than others may be awarded or appreciated, others are not to be considered any less successful if they end up learning the same things over a longer course of time.
Learning is not a linear activity. It certainly cannot be time-bound either. Learning is complicated made more complicated by the fact that it can take place through various different kinds of techniques involving different kids of senses. If we add the inherent diversity in abilities, aptitude, and sensory endowments of different human beings, we will see the fruitlessness of streamlining education in a linear time-bound process.
Let's assume that there are two concepts - A & B - that students currently learn about over two years in school. While there may be students who are able to learn these concepts in 12 months each, there may be some who might take 18 months to learn concept A, but may require only 6 more months to learn the associated concept B. Similarly, there may be others who would grasp concept A in 6 months but may require 18 more months to grasp concept B.
It is evident now that the current schooling system will cause the second and the third set of students to 'fail' even though all three sets of students could have learnt both the concepts in the same amount of time, i.e. 24 months. And we haven't considered the possibility of some students being able to learn B first and then learning A.
It must also be obvious by now how the system is unfair to those students who might have been able to learn both the concepts in 12 months only. Such students are made to needlessly spend an extra year in the schooling system. An extra year that the student could have spent learning something more or something else.
The 12-year schooling system with its linear structure of syllabus and an artificial notion of time-bounds brackets all students with their different abilities and learning capacities in the same category and evaluates them on artificially defined time and examination-based platforms.
Essentially, the current schooling system does a great disservice to all the students. In a country that celebrates the legend of a teacher who turned three foolish princes into wise men through the art of story telling, it is a travesty that students are now being deprived of reaching their true potential by branding them as 'failures'. It's time we did a serious rethink of our schooling system.
Immediately, there were two contrasting responses to the statement. One, that appreciated the minister's move as a measure to reduce the burden on school students. The other called it as a move that would encourage and perpetuate mediocrity as it removes all disincentives for performing poorly while also eliminating any potential rewards for good performance. The detractors' arguments do have some merit as there have been multiple reports (see this and this) about deteriorating quality of primary education in India.
Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I am personally inclined in favour of eliminating 'fail' grades for school children. However, I also admit that doing so in the current schooling system will inevitably lead to disastrous results. So, what's the way forward?
I have witnessed at very close quarters what a 'fail' grade does to the confidence of a student. Not only the self-belief of the student is shattered, it can also lead to anxiety, depression, and in some cases, even suicides.
What does a 'fail' grade even mean in the schooling context? Is it that the student failed to learn something by the time the examination was conducted? In that case, is it being implied that the student won't ever be able to learn it in future? If a student failed to answer a set of questions asked in an examination, is it fair to assume that the same student would not have been able to answer a different set of questions more 'successfully'?
What I am trying to highlight is that performance in an examination is a function of the time of examination, the set of questions, and the circumstances leading up to and at the time of examination. If one includes other external factors like physical and mental conditions of the students, distractions, pen/computer failures, pace of answering etc., we see that the notion of 'failure' becomes more and more questionable.
In the management institute I studied in, a certain professor of a managerial accounting course believed in subjecting students to quizzes with extreme time pressure. A student was typically required to analyze a balance sheet and calculate missing values in ridiculously short times. While some students did manage to do quite well in those exams, a large number could not do so even if they were equally capable of analyzing those balance sheets very well. But the system branded them as inferior to the toppers by awarding them lower grades. This was an absurd method of evaluation to say the least and completely unfair to many bright students.
The current system of schooling that pushes students through a tiered system of grade 1 through grade 12 perpetuates exactly this kind of absurdity.
Imagine a race around a track where each runner has to run 12 laps with each lap to be completed within the same time limit. Failing to complete a lap within the stipulated time will result in elimination, or worse still, repeating the same lap until the runner is able to run it within the stipulated time.
Those who have witnessed an Olympic race for long-distance running will know that not all runners run at the same pace. Not only that, a runner does not run all the laps at the same pace either. While some runners prefer to start the race at high speeds trying to build a huge lead over others, there are some who like to start slow and then increase their pace towards the end of the race. Needless to say, there isn't one single strategy to run the race.
Our education system does not need to be like a running race. Education is more like mountaineering. The objective is to climb the mountain. The success too is defined in terms of whether the objective is reached. All those who are able to reach the zenith are deemed successful. It does not matter whether one takes a couple of days or a few hours to reach the target. It also does not matter what clothes, equipment, shoe, or tools the mountaineer used to scale the summit.
Our education system, unfortunately, is so focused on the process that we have lost sight of the most important aspect of it - the purpose.
Success of a student, just like the mountaineer, is in learning; not in obtaining top grades in an examination. A student must be evaluated on how much one has learnt and examinations must only function as one of the tools to measure that.
While students who learn faster than others may be awarded or appreciated, others are not to be considered any less successful if they end up learning the same things over a longer course of time.
Learning is not a linear activity. It certainly cannot be time-bound either. Learning is complicated made more complicated by the fact that it can take place through various different kinds of techniques involving different kids of senses. If we add the inherent diversity in abilities, aptitude, and sensory endowments of different human beings, we will see the fruitlessness of streamlining education in a linear time-bound process.
Let's assume that there are two concepts - A & B - that students currently learn about over two years in school. While there may be students who are able to learn these concepts in 12 months each, there may be some who might take 18 months to learn concept A, but may require only 6 more months to learn the associated concept B. Similarly, there may be others who would grasp concept A in 6 months but may require 18 more months to grasp concept B.
It is evident now that the current schooling system will cause the second and the third set of students to 'fail' even though all three sets of students could have learnt both the concepts in the same amount of time, i.e. 24 months. And we haven't considered the possibility of some students being able to learn B first and then learning A.
It must also be obvious by now how the system is unfair to those students who might have been able to learn both the concepts in 12 months only. Such students are made to needlessly spend an extra year in the schooling system. An extra year that the student could have spent learning something more or something else.
The 12-year schooling system with its linear structure of syllabus and an artificial notion of time-bounds brackets all students with their different abilities and learning capacities in the same category and evaluates them on artificially defined time and examination-based platforms.
