By H H Mohrmen
Now everybody is in a festive mood and we are gradually forgetting the very disappointing incident that had happened in the state recently because public memory, as they say, is very short. Though the issue was important because it has to do with the future generation of the state, we conveniently and deliberately pushed the issue to the backburner. The unpleasant incident has even made some in the community and even the members of the teaching fraternity to compare Meghalaya with another state in the country which is famous for cheating and using unfair means in any kind of test or examination.
The incident is none other than the recent case where questions of certain subjects in the final examination for class IX (nine) conducted by MBOSE was available to the students even before the examination. According to news reports there is a widespread leakage of question papers particularly in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills. In such an eventuality the first question that needs to be asked is, why did somebody have to leak the question papers in the first place? Isn’t it true that the questions leaked because there is a demand for them and according to the law of demand and supply there would not be supply if there was no corresponding demand.
I am not trying to protect the officials (it has to be officials in the schools where the questions were kept who had access to the questions) who were involved in the crime, but what makes students succumb to such unfair practices? Of course anybody involved in a crime should be dealt with accordingly, but why would students or even their parents and guardians (if they were also involved) stoop so low as to resort to such shameful acts? What are the pressures that forced the students to decide to use unfair means during examinations?
The first reason that had tempted the students to use unfair practices could very well be because the community and families give undue importance to those students who score high marks and top their class. The habit of admiring only top ranking students has become a par for the course particularly among the Khasi Pnar people. The local communities, churches and even NGOs are obsessed with the idea and organize functions to recognize those who excel in various examinations. The community’s obsession with top rankers also creates pressure on parents and even teachers to push the students to score high marks or achieve top ranks.
In such a situation not only are the youths excelling in other field not recognized but in the process we demean those who do not do well in their examinations. We also unconsciously build pride among the top graders and label the others as non-achievers thereby creating inferiority complex among those who cannot do well academically.
The cumbersome syllabus which creates a problem even for the schools to complete it on time is another reason for the students to use the easy way out of their examinations. Schools have to conduct extra classes and even that is not enough. Apart from spending six to seven hours inside the classrooms students still have to take the help of private tutors to complete their studies. Kids nowadays have no time to play and most importantly the students do not enjoy studying, because it is thrust upon them. Now is this the kind of learning that we want for our kids?
The question is also how much does one learn from an education system which only expects schools to complete the burdensome syllabus and for the students to memorize what they learn for the purpose of reproducing it in the exam. The test that we are conducting now is not to gauge how much the students understand what is taught to them, but how much they can reproduce from memory what has been taught to them. This is not learning it is only memorizing and this could be another reason that students with poor memories resort to unfair means in the examination. There is no learning in the present education system; there is only an insistence on memorizing the lessons and reproducing the same during the exams. The sad part is that all that was learned for examinations was forgotten soon after the exams are over.
The other question that we should also ask is how much does one make use of what one had learned from the lessons in school? Perhaps there is no better lesson to test this than that which is right in front of us and which a very important visitor to the capital had pointed out recently. The case in point is the way people treat the Wah Umkhrah. Nearly everyone in Shillong is literate but who pollutes the Wah Umkhrah? Does education or what they learned from health education have any impact on how they behave or live their lives?
Education is important because it prepares the future generation of the State and the country, but the recent embarrassing situation has only proved that examination based education has failed us and as someone had remarked before me, it had only help produce living robots, who cannot think creatively. The pertinent question is also what kind of students our education system has produced? If a Class IX student resorts to unfair means to pass the annual examination, then I fear for the future of the State. What kind of future do we expect if our kids would even cheat to pass their examinations?
Another reason for the kind of education we have is the prohibitive fees. Education is expensive. This is obvious in the availability of different standards of educational institutions in the state. The rich- poor divide is very obvious in the kind of schools the students attend. This happens even in mission run schools. There are many mission schools that are beyond the reach of the poor and the needy. In fact the top institutions of higher education in the state capital are beyond the reach of the poor family.
We will experience similar incidents if we continue with the present system of education. What is more disappointing is that there will be no learning in such a system. Students will only concentrate on their syllabus and what they learn is from the textbook only. And because they do not have time to think and even observe and learn from the world around them, their learning is limited to textbooks. For them learning is from the textbook or what is in the textbook only. They feel their education is complete after cogging the prescribed lessons from the textbook. In fact there is no time for them to even try to understand and learn what is around them because the lessons are so intense that kids do not have time to rest.
Surprisingly during exams even parents have to spend as much time as their kids to prepare them for their examinations. It has also become a trend in the government offices now that parents would avail leave during their children’s examination. Sometimes one wonders whether the examination is for the child or the parents. It is also a common experience now that students have no time to read books other than those prescribed in the syllabus and generally they don’t even have time to read the newspapers.
What does it make the students attempt to pass with good grades and come out with flying colours no matter what? Student even resort to unfair means and at the end of the day education not only fails to help our students learn, but sadly it also makes them morally bankrupt and forfeit their reputation early in life. In such a situation the objective of education which is to prepare the young generation for the future has not only failed them. It has made them morally bankrupt.