examination:a necessary evil
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One will rarely find a child who enjoys giving exams; the bright ones are under the stress of performing well every time, the average and weak ones are much stressed out to get through, and then there are the creatively indulging kinds, who put all their efforts in collecting cheating material or finding ways to outsmart the invigilators.
How useful are examinations anyway? That we need to assess kids is unquestionable. That students should be able to express and explain what they have learnt is also indisputable. But does the current assessment system provide the necessary tools for learning, is the point in question.
Often during exams children go through so much stress that many show symptoms of nausea, dizziness, loss of appetite and sleeplessness. Matters get lot worse during the board exams and there have been several cases where children have reportedly ended their lives, failing to cope with the pressure to do well. Much of this, however, happens at the at school level. The assessment patterns at higher institutions follow an easy pace, which is less traumatic.
Then why do we, in India, follow such a rigid Methodism for younger kids? Aren't the school years meant for creative learning? The Board results of Std X and Std XI, at best, help kids gain entry into a professional degree programme. But, in the long run, it is their professional grades that will matter. This very fact is enough to do away with the intense pressure children are put under due to the current methodology of school exams.
The international assessment system, which is a good working model, follows an individual pace of testing. Assessment may be in the form of write-ups, models, paper presentations and group presentations. A research conducted in University of Standford shows that marks and grades do not induce learning. Children are more interested in marks rather than the process of learning.
While few schools and a small segment of parents may be comfortable with the international pattern of assessment, a larger section of parents in India is seemingly more comfortable in the conventional system of exams.
The extent of phobia that exams have assumed is definitely a deterrent to the health of kids. Children will do good to beat the stress by eating right, sleeping eight hours a day, and playing some sport every day. Deep breathing with light meditation will help them calm their mind. The age old habit of five almonds soaked, peeled and taken on an empty stomach every morning helps memory retention and agility.
In adulthood, living with stress is an inescapable fact of life. For that, the existing exam system may seem as a method of preparing students for the future. There will be, however, plenty of opportunities ahead for experiencing the demanding, nerve-racking aspect of life. Maybe for now, we should let children just be children.
In the field of Education, we call the “Examinations”, the “Necessary Evil”.
As everyone knows, necessary or unnecessary, an Evil is not something good. It can harm anybody, anytime. However, this Evil is necessary in certain circumstances.
After teaching or learning something, both teachers and pupils want to know and need to know how much the students have achieved from that teaching.
Teachers need to know the effectiveness of their teaching materials and teaching methods. The teacher also needs to know the weaknesses and strengths of his students. Thus having a clear understanding of the needs of the class and the needs of each individual student, the teacher will be in a better position to modify his teaching style and teaching materials and even repeat certain portions of his lessons to get the best results.
From the side of the students, they also need to know which part of the lesson has been understood well, what difficulties they have encountered during the learning process, which portion of the lesson they want to know more, and finally what kind of help they want from their teachers.
For these purposes we use “Tests” or “Examinations” to assess the achievement of students and also to assess the teaching of teachers.
So, let’s ponder a while and think to what extent we can assess the achievements of students and the teaching of teachers.
According to the experts of Educational Test and Measurement or Educational Assessment, the results or the marks we get from an Examination comes out as follows: ..
Marks from an Examination = Actual Achievement of a student + or – Error.
That means we can rarely get the actual achievement of a student by merely looking at the marks he gets from an Exam. There can always be an “error” which is a plus or a minus to the actual assessment of a student.
For example: –
Let’s say a student had prepared well and knows all the lessons he had to study for his examination very well. If he fell ill the night before the examination or if he had an accident on the morning of the examination, he would not be able to do well in his examination. Because of the physical pain he had to suffer during the examination hour or because of the shock he had experienced that morning, he could have a minus error to his actual achievement which will surely come out in his examination results.
On the other hand let us take a look at the reverse scenario. In this case the student might not have studied well but if he were able to answer all the questions because the questions asked happened to be just the ones that he had prepared thoroughly, then the result would be that he would get high marks. Then, this would be a plus error to his actual achievement.
So, although we cannot get the actual achievement of a student as the result of an examination , we need to use the examinations and tests up to the time we can substitute them with a better instrument that can assess the actual achievement well.
That is why we call the “Examinations” the “Necessary Evil”.
So we need to find precautions and ways and means to get the results nearest to the actual achievement of a student.
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