Above board and beyond

With the cancellation of the board exams, many of our youngsters and their parents, I assume, are passing through some sort of psychic bewilderment and anxiety. Even though at this time of the pandemic, nothing should matter more than the safety of these students, some of them, it seems, are still angry. It is not surprising. As the prevalent practice of education is integrally related to the centrality of standardised tests and exams, one is conditioned to believe that there is no other way to evaluate one’s worth, or intellectual/cognitive development; and hence, not to get an opportunity to compete, and write this mystified exam (with enhanced palpitation, sleepless nights and temple visits), or not to be graded, ranked and hierarchised by a centralised/ value-neutral authority is to lose what matters in this hyper-competitive society: fighting spirit and achievement orientation. The quality of education, it is feared, is bound to decay if there is no board exam.

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However, there are educationists and pedagogues amongst us who think somewhat differently. Even under normal circumstances, as they remind us, the one-sided emphasis on centralised tests has disastrous consequences. First, in a society like ours characterised by highly stratified schooling and uneven distribution of social and cultural capital, the board exam cannot be said to be ‘neutral’. Even though a student of a municipality school located at a slum in Delhi and a student of an international school in Mumbai are asked to read the same texts and write the same exam, they are by no means equal participants in this race. Possibly, this sort of exam legitimises and sanctifies the already existing social inequality through the rationale of ‘meritocracy’. And second, they would argue that the ritualisation of exams distorts the higher goal of education. The spirit of learning/unlearning with joy and wonder is sacrificed; what really matters is the ‘war instinct’—the strategy of writing the ‘correct’ answer, and reducing every discipline into a set of ‘knowledge capsules’ for quick consumption. In this age of inflated marks, 100% in physics does by no means indicate the arrival of a young Einstein; or, for that matter, 99% in English (even though it can assure your child’s admission in a branded college) is no guarantee that William Blake and Charles Dickens fascinate her. In other words, this hype over exams needs to be demystified.

This debate can go on. But then, what all of us would concede that neither the CBSE nor the ICSE can prepare our youngsters to face the most important exam the pandemic has made them confront. And it is important to realise that the preparedness for life (yes, as the pandemic has shown, it is not a picnic party; it is inseparable from death, pain, suffering and impermanence) is not to memorise the 10 reasons for the downfall of the Mughal Empire, or to solve a differential equation, or to merge with the IIT/IIM nexus. Can the prevalent system of education, with excessive stress on bookish knowledge, instrumental intelligence and ‘success’ mantras really prepare our children to become sensitive to life and associated existential questions?

Look at them, feel their stress and anxiety, and experience their psychic nausea as they consume the statistics of death and see the taken-for-granted world crumbling in front of their eyes. I am not saying that they should feel eternally sad. As a teacher, I have no hesitation in saying that a lesson in physics or history has its own role, and this academic engagement can also prove to be therapeutic. And youngsters ought to study and expand their horizons. Yet, as the pandemic is teaching us, our children ought to cultivate something deep—beyond the official curriculum. And without this awakened intelligence, life cannot be lived meaningfully as they would enter the world and experience the new reality. What are the qualities they need to cultivate to face this real exam of life?

First, the art of perseverance and endurance is the most important lesson to be learned. When darkness prevails and everything around looks bleak, it is important to acquire the courage to wait, retain the conviction that this too will pass, and the light of new dawn is as real as the intensity of dark night. ‘I can think, I can wait, I can fast’ — Siddhartha (the protagonist of Hermann Hesse’s novel) reminded us of this important lesson of life that every seeker (a student is a seeker, not an exam warrior) ought to learn in order to pass through the complex trajectory of existence: life and death, pain and pleasure, and peaks and valleys. Second, the nuanced art of empathy is yet another important lesson to be learned. Should our youngsters remain obsessed with egotistic success? Or is it more important for them to understand and feel the pain of migrant workers, the trauma of those who have lost their nearest ones simply because there was no oxygen cylinder, or the helplessness of those who have lost their jobs? And third, the cultivation of a creatively nuanced critical consciousness is the need of the hour. This is not about cramming CBSE political science questions; this is the ability to see the ugliness of the narcissistic political class, the exploitative character of Indian society, the harshness of vaccine inequality, and yet strive for the ethics of care in the post-pandemic world.

Should parents, teachers and educators bother to think of this real exam that no board has ever visualised?