In a bid to reform the Indian education system, Kapil Shibal, HRD Minister of India said that the government is planning to scrap the compulsory secondary board exam at Class X and develop an alternative method to evaluate students’ aptitude. According to Mr. Shibal, the current education system is a “recipe for disaster.” Only 11 students out of every one hundred students in India reach to graduate level. Currently, there are 547 million people in India under twenty years of age and only 11% of them will become graduates.
Mr. Shibal unveiled his one hundred day plan and said that there will be a one single board and under that board, there will be one uniform exam which will determine which knowledge stream a student should chose in future. This new system will reduce the pressure upon students and parents. In addition, the present percentage based evaluation system will be replaced by an alternative system “based on percentiles.”
I live in Bangladesh and we also have board exam system at the secondary and higher secondary levels and students get to apply for colleges and universities based on their marks in these exams. I admit that it is a painful system because it only focuses on “how much number a student gets” not “what he/she knows.” This has led to rote learning and memorization. There are many students who get very good marks but they do not have better understandings of their subjects which creates lots of problem when they reach graduate level. In a sense, the decision of Mr. Shibal makes sense but the most importantly “Will the alternative system make a difference?” “Will it make study and exams less painful and motivate students to study?”
