In a socially unequal fabric, an education system that is in complete harmony with it, with different schools offering uneven quality education, public examinations, is a farce. During Boards/CET, students from completely different backgrounds, both in terms of the schools that they have studied in and the homes they come from, are expected to sit as equals and compete with each other. It’s ironic that the roots of the discriminatory nature of the examination lie in its very approach, which treats everyone as the same, without accommodating the differences among them.
Performing well in such exams is not necessarily an indicator of a person’s merit or ability, but is more about the technique of cracking the exam. The mantra for succeeding in such exams is often, work smart not hard. So long as there are public exams, where neither the teachers correcting answer scripts know their students, nor students know their teachers, coaching centres will continue to flourish. Similarly,…
