DailyPost 1796
THE DEATH OF MARKS
The quality of a nation depends on the credibility of marks, the educational system churns out at different levels of education. The obsession with marks is perfectly fine, but marks should be an indicator and manifestation of learning, knowledge, and expertise. We have seen visuals of people scaling up examination center walls to facilitate the students to score high marks. If a nation has not been able to deliver a sterile examination system, then what value does marks have. What value does the educational system have? For long the competitive exams for higher education entrance have heralded that they don’t go by the marks generated by the legally mandated examination systems and that their competitive exams generate the right marks (talent). Nobody ever objected to this take over.
Marks soaring higher and higher became the trend at the school level board exams. Sometimes, it gave a feeling that even the boards are competing with each other. Lots of school boards started delivering marks not directly connected to the performance in the exams. Some boards at their own level or at even higher levels decision making decided in favor of the grace marks game. Whether that was grace or lack of it, is already proven. Marks as the final arbiter of higher education access, of talent and of knowledge started losing currency. There are renowned schools which produce students with very high marks in boards but not making the cut in competitive exams.
The marking in the CGPA experiment also speaks of the same trend. It had to be given up. It was presumed and rightly so, that the schools who groom our children for life cannot be believed to maintain standards and fairness. In the olden days too, the marks of the practical were an item of favor and being in good books of the teacher always helped. With all the negative trends, still there was some method in the madness, extremely difficult to find, nonetheless. This year’s board results finally can be very fairly termed as death of marks. “Compared to last year, the number of students scoring 95% and above has increased by 118.6% and those getting 90% and above by 67.48% this year.” These are the results of CBSE 12th exams this year.
This is also indicative of all other boards. The interesting facets of the bumper yield of marks happened in a year when exams could not be conducted. Even more fascinating is that schools remained closed for over 15 months by then. Undeniably, the studies would have been impacted in a big way. Added to that COVID-19 brought multifarious tragedies to our lives. What does one speak of the internal exams in schools? In these life rending times students have come out with the best result of the century. It has been a monsoon of marks. Whether to celebrate or mourn is a million-dollar question. Marks has just seen its nemesis.
DEATH OF MARKS CAN BE THE BEGINNING OF A NEW SYSTEM OF STUDENT EVALUATION, IN TUNE WITH THE TIMES.
Sanjay Sahay