One sultry monsoon Friday afternoon, I was neck deep in evaluation work. As a welcome departure, a cheerful student came into my cabin, almost running. She was visibly excited about the grade-sheet she had been clutching tightly.
" I got the 3rd highest marks in the class, Sir. Please bless me so I can top my class in the future!" she said, almost running out of breath. I barely got time to minimize the excel sheet on to my PC desktop.
" I got the 3rd highest marks in the class, Sir. Please bless me so I can top my class in the future!" she said, almost running out of breath. I barely got time to minimize the excel sheet on to my PC desktop.
"Wow, seems like you burnt a lot of mid-night oil for those grades! May God Bless you with whatever you wish, and more." I mumbled, trying to recover from the unexpected wave of excitement her arrival had radiated in the faculty cabin.
" Thank you, sir." she beamed even as she bent down low to touch my feet, as is customary among the students of North India. I was of course a touch surprised as girls normally avoid touching feet of teachers in these parts.
" Let me see," I said with my left hand outstretched.
"Here, sir. I lag the topper by 30 marks, Sir. I am going to beat that one next." she said, handing over the sheet.
"Very good. Your aggregate is around 75-ish. That's good by university standards."
"Yes, Sir. But I am disappointed at not having topped. Arvind was always answering in negative whenever I asked him about his paper. Now, he's topped."
Three Idiots was a fact, after all, I thought.
"I think you shouldn't be worried about anyone else. Focus on what you like and try to improve upon your weaknesses, although your grades don't reveal many. Wish you all the best for the next time."
"No, Sir. Wish for me to become the topper. That's my sole purpose in life, I have never been second best."
"Go for gold, child." I bid her farewell saying thus.
Three minutes: that's how long our conversation was. Yet, I was put into a spiral of thoughts by what she had told me abut her wish. Her sole purpose in life was to top the class- what motivation! This 3-minute chat with that student and many subsequent short interviews with students who missed the grades, the good ones, raised many questions in my mind- a beginner, by teaching standards.
The government had presumed that clubbing together all the students who scored between a certain range of marks/percentages and granting them a grade would ameliorate some classes of parents, employers and students like. Could they have been wrong? Then there were the numerous cases of suicides, some fatal and some attempted. Have these cases dropped in numbers? About what percentage drop in student-related suicide cases will be enough to call the West-influenced grading system as having been a success? Is one isolated case of attitudinal problems leading to suicide enough to rule out re-consideration of grading system?
Then there is the now-famous "Sharma Ji ka beta". My mind is right now boggled with questions, myriad and varied. Were our ancestors wrong in naming Gods- all religions included? Was it a fallacy to revere- anything, anybody, any way? Is sportsmanship a bhram- an illusion? Are all corporations of the world today wrong in their pursuit of improvement in processes, people and practices? Any sane thinker might be peeved at my reasoning. After all, what has the joy of achieving high scores got to do with Gods, companies and Olympics? Well, the underlying emotion here is not competition, but improvement of self with ideals(benchmarks) in the mind. Agreed, the price of improving upon scores cannot and should not be achieved at the cost of duress and fatigue to the young minds, but that doesn't mean students be left to their own devices in academic achievement.
If one agrees that there must be benchmarks of performance and rewards must be in accordance with performance, then the "Sharma Ji ka beta" syndrome is justified, if not in entirety. Argue in logic, please, not just for the sake of putting up a face. While, people readily uphold reward in corporate for individual and team achievement, they deny its justification at places of learning. Their chief argument being that the un-rewarded will be crestfallen. Well, then what happens to the un-rewarded colleagues at office? Do they run off high rises to terminate their abominable lives? The answer and hence the reason is not very different in academics either.
True, the West has thrived on its spirit of liberal education system for all; they dominate the world's research produce, they maintain very high standards of living and dying (Oops!), blah, blah. My concern is, give them a demography as varied and vivid as India's and let them be consistent in their outcome. Where disparity is what defines who you are, the struggle for existence precedes all other individual fantasies at some point in a person's life. The eco-system is ideal for competition- the healthy as well as the not-so-sporting variations accounted.
Many bring in the examples of China, Japan and other oriental nations to the table. Their development too is, by far, exemplary, along with comparable demographics. What went wrong with India then? That's where I wish, India had been as transformational in its growth as it has been incremental. Hence, PM Modi's call for such a paradigm shift in developmental agenda is the need of the hour. Let the market decide what stays and what doesn't. Let competition be the litmus. Let opportunity be equitable and the outcomes, accountable. No "Sharma Ji Ka Beta" would ever be around if there was no inequity in the social fabric. To draw out his deep-rooted evil which has many hair strands, each one a separate social issue altogether, enforcement of strong political will is a must.
Till that happens, which is an obscure point in the future (near or far is anyone's guess), grades will taste sour.
" Thank you, sir." she beamed even as she bent down low to touch my feet, as is customary among the students of North India. I was of course a touch surprised as girls normally avoid touching feet of teachers in these parts.
" Let me see," I said with my left hand outstretched.
"Here, sir. I lag the topper by 30 marks, Sir. I am going to beat that one next." she said, handing over the sheet.
"Very good. Your aggregate is around 75-ish. That's good by university standards."
"Yes, Sir. But I am disappointed at not having topped. Arvind was always answering in negative whenever I asked him about his paper. Now, he's topped."
Three Idiots was a fact, after all, I thought.
"I think you shouldn't be worried about anyone else. Focus on what you like and try to improve upon your weaknesses, although your grades don't reveal many. Wish you all the best for the next time."
"No, Sir. Wish for me to become the topper. That's my sole purpose in life, I have never been second best."
"Go for gold, child." I bid her farewell saying thus.
Three minutes: that's how long our conversation was. Yet, I was put into a spiral of thoughts by what she had told me abut her wish. Her sole purpose in life was to top the class- what motivation! This 3-minute chat with that student and many subsequent short interviews with students who missed the grades, the good ones, raised many questions in my mind- a beginner, by teaching standards.
The government had presumed that clubbing together all the students who scored between a certain range of marks/percentages and granting them a grade would ameliorate some classes of parents, employers and students like. Could they have been wrong? Then there were the numerous cases of suicides, some fatal and some attempted. Have these cases dropped in numbers? About what percentage drop in student-related suicide cases will be enough to call the West-influenced grading system as having been a success? Is one isolated case of attitudinal problems leading to suicide enough to rule out re-consideration of grading system?
Then there is the now-famous "Sharma Ji ka beta". My mind is right now boggled with questions, myriad and varied. Were our ancestors wrong in naming Gods- all religions included? Was it a fallacy to revere- anything, anybody, any way? Is sportsmanship a bhram- an illusion? Are all corporations of the world today wrong in their pursuit of improvement in processes, people and practices? Any sane thinker might be peeved at my reasoning. After all, what has the joy of achieving high scores got to do with Gods, companies and Olympics? Well, the underlying emotion here is not competition, but improvement of self with ideals(benchmarks) in the mind. Agreed, the price of improving upon scores cannot and should not be achieved at the cost of duress and fatigue to the young minds, but that doesn't mean students be left to their own devices in academic achievement.
If one agrees that there must be benchmarks of performance and rewards must be in accordance with performance, then the "Sharma Ji ka beta" syndrome is justified, if not in entirety. Argue in logic, please, not just for the sake of putting up a face. While, people readily uphold reward in corporate for individual and team achievement, they deny its justification at places of learning. Their chief argument being that the un-rewarded will be crestfallen. Well, then what happens to the un-rewarded colleagues at office? Do they run off high rises to terminate their abominable lives? The answer and hence the reason is not very different in academics either.
True, the West has thrived on its spirit of liberal education system for all; they dominate the world's research produce, they maintain very high standards of living and dying (Oops!), blah, blah. My concern is, give them a demography as varied and vivid as India's and let them be consistent in their outcome. Where disparity is what defines who you are, the struggle for existence precedes all other individual fantasies at some point in a person's life. The eco-system is ideal for competition- the healthy as well as the not-so-sporting variations accounted.
Many bring in the examples of China, Japan and other oriental nations to the table. Their development too is, by far, exemplary, along with comparable demographics. What went wrong with India then? That's where I wish, India had been as transformational in its growth as it has been incremental. Hence, PM Modi's call for such a paradigm shift in developmental agenda is the need of the hour. Let the market decide what stays and what doesn't. Let competition be the litmus. Let opportunity be equitable and the outcomes, accountable. No "Sharma Ji Ka Beta" would ever be around if there was no inequity in the social fabric. To draw out his deep-rooted evil which has many hair strands, each one a separate social issue altogether, enforcement of strong political will is a must.
Till that happens, which is an obscure point in the future (near or far is anyone's guess), grades will taste sour.
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