Examinations and Education – SYNONYMOUS?

In this technology driven world, where every second of life matters as if it were pearls dropping off slippery hands; a child asked his mom, “Are exams important mummy?” and mom’s hands, which were busy typing an excerpt, came to a standstill. Even she is having second thoughts. That night, she asked her husband, “Darling, are exams important?” He gave her a puzzled look. He shrugged. Now, that’s precisely the way world welcomes a valid question.

 

In my more than 15 years of experience of learning under various teachers (from kinder garden to College and after), I noticed one major flaw: EXAMINATIONS are used as SHOVELS to DUMP ‘education’ over empty head and not as paraphernalia to educate children. I would take vanity in saying that I took education and examination differently. Back to the primordial times, examinations were used in adman different way. It was based on an aphorism which goes like this

Nature tests you first, and then teaches you

Examinations were paraphernalia to educate animals and humans alike. A bird was (and is) never taught to fly; it imitates, takes efforts, drives motivation from a sense of jealousy that others can fly and it cannot, falls umpteen times and then has its first flight. But, now examinations are used as deadlines to finish tasks! To mind my dear readers, education was never a task. It is an ongoing process. You stop breathing, you stop desiring, you stop learning. Education is also done rather fancily, by learning from others. One instance is that we don’t calculate acceleration due to gravity (g) as and when. We know that the value of g of Earth is 9.8 m/s². This is education!

But, every teaching in life has to be applied in various ways in order to understand better and excel better. For gauging this, examinations come into play. Education is a large loaf of bread, and examination measures the maximum amount of bread eaten and assimilated by students. Ideally, examinations measure the knowledge gained by students and seldom the data and figures memorized. Bu, in 90% schools in India (and other countries), the exact opposite happens. And they wonder why the graduates and diploma holders are not employable?! No wonder they are excelling in literacy (which is, by international terms, the ability to read, write, understand and speak a language) and not in education. Education is the next level of literacy where you know the 26 alphabets and how to frame sentences; and one is expected to convey, express and articulate effectively.

I aver that those are my personal views, and I strongly hope that they differ from that of my readers. Do step up, comment and present your views appreciating/critiquing my views.