As CBSE and ICSE toppers score 100% in nearly every subject, educationists warn that we may be creating a generation of rote learners who are unable to think independently. Experts offer solutions to reform the education system

At the heart of the problem is the mechanical evaluation of the answer sheet. The board encourages exact copying of answers from the guide book or textbook rather than critical thinking. Anyone who uses the exact phrases as suggested in the model answers will be marked correct. So if the correct response to a question is red and you write scarlet, it will be marked incorrect. To give another example, in 2017, a class XII student went to court against the disparity in the marks she had been given in political science. Her overall marks were above 90%, but in political science, she got only 70. After the court ordered a re-evaluation, it was found that her answers were impeccable except they were not in the language used by the textbook or the guide book. This shows that our education system is only fostering rote learning.

We also need to pay those setting the question papers and the evaluators better. Teachers are paid a pittance, around Rs 25-30 per paper for answer sheets. There is also a lot of pressure as teachers are asked to do as many sheets a day as possible. The CBSE is hiding behind a blanket of confidentiality. There is no way to ask them for a list of teachers who have been appointed to set the question papers, or what criteria has been used to select them. This makes the job of bringing reforms within the CBSE very hard.

‘Except enrolment, everything else is going wrong’

Anil Swarup | FORMER EDUCATION SECRETARY

These unreasonably high marks are a stupidity that is sustained because it is in everyone’s interest to let it continue. The students love high marks, as do the parents. School principals, teachers and state boards are evaluated on the students’ performance so it serves their purpose. Everyone outside the system feels it is wrong, but no one within the system wants to change it. When I was the coal secretary, I found that the mafia was underground, but in education the mafia is over ground disguised as intellectuals.

As HRD secretary, I had decided to take on the farce called “moderation”. The CBSE was spiking marks across answer sheets for a variety of reasons including compensating a student for difficulties in solving the paper or to eliminate subjectivity in evaluation. There were other reasons like maintaining a near-parity of pass percentage of candidates in the current year as compared to previous years.

We evolved a strategy to do away with this moderation in April 2017 but there was immense pressure from politicians, civil servants, and advocates. The parents even managed to get a stay in the Delhi High Court.

Except increasing enrolment, everything else has gone wrong with school education in India. We have spent enough time making policies, now we need action. Adequate training for teachers is vital. By 2017, there were around 18,000 teacher education institutions in the country but many of these guaranteed a degree without attendance or internal assessments. There were more than 11 lakh teachers who were teaching but did not have the requisite qualification to do so. We need to first tackle that before we look at anything else.

‘Classroom apartheid has to go’

Shantha Sinha | FORMER CHAIRPERSON OF NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR PROTECTION OF CHILD RIGHTS

Commercialisation of education has introduced an element of exclusion and competition. There are many private shops competing for achievers. Children do not learn in this environment. They are being converted into mindless machines who are made to perform as though they are in a circus. We need to change the paradigm completely. In the National Curriculum Framework 2005, we had recommended that the child’s performance should be based on sports, art and culture, not just academics. But how do you market art and culture? Instead we are producing a generation of morons.

The education system has to be more inclusive and democratic so that it is accessible to the maximum number of students rather than just socalled achievers. It must clear out false gradations, this classroom apartheid of telling people they are no good and others that they are excellent. The big question we have to find an answer to is how to define a system that includes all talents, irrespective of caste and class. We must have neighbourhood schools that provide quality education to all children, and policies that are democratic.