Meaningful changes needed

The shocking picture of people perched precariously on the walls and windows of a four-story school building in Bihar passing, by a relay system, chits of paper containing answers to the students taking exams inside the building, with parents actively encouraging and police looking the other way, has graphically exposed  the sorry state of our education system in some parts of the country. 

That the quality of education of Indian students is highly uneven has been known all over the world for a long time. In the late 1960s while we went to USA for graduate studies, we found that US universities were very unsure of the quality of Indian students. As a result, they would admit students only from such Indian universities from which earlier batches of students have done well. More recently, The Economist published an article on post-liberalisation India which commented that about 1/3rd of Indian students are world class (may very well be an over-estimate), another 1/3rd passable while the rest  are  pathetic.

In this context, consider the proposal from some quarters that there should be no detentions   and all students are to be automatically promoted up to at least class VIII in schools. There would be some internal assessments which, however, would not carry any weight for moving to the next class. The argument advanced is that the young minds should not be exposed to pressures which lead to dropouts or even suicides. Parental pressure on children to  be among the toppers or creating an impression that faring badly in some exams means  the end of the world  is certainly  wrong. 

But, at the same time, learning does not take place without some rewards and punishments.  It is better to be exposed to healthy competition as early as possible in life through lots of tests, quizzes and extra-curricular activities which force students to compete, learn and prepare to face much tougher competition in later life. Moreover, regular participation in tests helps overcome the fear of exams in some students.

But internal assessments without having any bearing on promotions to the next class would not be taken seriously by the majority of students, parents or teachers.  If insisted by authorities, the students and teachers in many schools would simply go through the motions. Not being exposed to rigorous tests till class IX would make them inadequate to face the sudden pressure of Board exams at the end of class X, leading to more failures, breakdowns and even suicides. Also, the only way some of the ill-prepared students (and their parents) would then try to overcome the Board exam hurdle would be by cheating. Given that the failure of students is taken to be the fault of teachers, the teachers/invigilators would also have the incentive to connive.

The same mentality of not studying regularly, in addition to bunking classes and then taking help of private tutors and made-easy note books at the last moment and finally cheating at exams is carried over by some students when they go to colleges. The college authorities, in turn, falsify attendance records to permit all students to sit for the University exam even if some of them may attend even less than 10 per cent of classes (the university mandated attendance is around 75 per cent). If some college authorities try to be strict, inevitably there will be protests and strikes by students, along with pressure from parents and local political bosses, some of them being heads of college governing councils.

Internal marks

At present, 30 per cent of total marks in a paper in engineering and management colleges are decided internally. The pass marks are usually 40 per cent. Most of the colleges would be giving more than 25 per cent internal marks to most of the students, irrespective of their actual performance. So, these students need to score more than 15 or so out of 70 marks to pass the university exam and get a degree.

The students, the teachers and the prospective employers are all aware of this. In addition, many of the students are poor in communication skills and awareness of current affairs.  Hence, the employers have little faith in students with a mere passing or low scoring degree. These students, even when they manage to get some job interviews, are found to be unemployable.

Many of the private engineering and management schools have been started by people whose sole objective is to make money by luring ill-informed students (and parents) with the help of huge ads full of false information about faculty, facilities and placement records. So, they would have no hesitation in listing the names of administrative staff as faculty members to satisfy university or AICTE norms.

The inspectors from university or AICTE, themselves being faculty members in different colleges, are mostly aware of these practices but they too keep their eyes closed. The teaching load imposed on the junior faculty is often so heavy that they are left with no time or energy to update their knowledge or to improve their career prospects. 

The student unions (in many cases extensions of political parties) are engaged in protests over all kinds of issues under the sun but they would not agitate against teachers not taking classes or against sub-standard quality of teaching or library/lab facilities. Their goal is to somehow get a degree (considered passport to a job) and are not bothered about the quality of teaching or learning.

One may now ask: What is the possible solution? The short answer is: we need to change the incentive structure along with enforcing accountability,
discipline and effective monitoring at all levels.