Class 10 exams optional

Hi All,

The decision to make Class 10 exams optional has caught most of us by surprise. After years and years of practically stagnant educational policies, we finally have something that at least smells of change and that too refreshing at that. Though I tend to agree with this decision on the policy level, I am a little anxious on how much actual change is there going to be on the ground. Moreover, the proposed change itself and the consequent discourse has been very urban centric.

First, this decision applies only to CBSE students. One wonders what happens to large swathes of students who are affiliated to other boards esp. the state boards. There is no talk about a similar arrangement for them. Why doesn’t the central government want to bat for these kids too? Paraphrasing the education minister, don’t these kids deserve to be de-traumatized as well?

Apart from making exams optional, other venues of making education more enjoyable and stress free could have been ventured. How about a greater percentage of classes conducted using audio visual aids? Or even tweaking the examination pattern to make assessments application oriented rather than ones that test memory power. How about incorporating achievements in extracurricular activities into the core system so that more children will be encouraged to take up these activities?

As we all know government schools in this country are in a pathetic shape and can be best described as tokens of government presence in the education sector. If the government was truly interested in revolutionalizing education, then it should pour in more money for constructing AND maintaining primary and secondary schools.

So for the reasons mentioned above, I feel that the proposed changes will only benefit a section of the society and will not bring out the real and necessary changes in the existing system.