A race to the bottom

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 A race to the bottom

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• Newsworthiness of CBSE results: The way Indian media covers the CBSE exams results, shrieking headlines steal the thunder. One hundred per cent marks is the worthwhile goal, nothing else!
• Human life's worth: Since the entire worth of a student's existence may get measured by the marks she scores, the X and XII Board marks are a source of great stress for whole families. Self-worth of students can take a battering.
• Scale of exams: Since more than 3 million students write these exams, the logistical exercise is huge. Many sets of encrypted papers are sent to exam centres, and there is a range of 800 subjects in all. CBSE is able to do it every year, without major glitches, and that's praiseworthy!
• Academic soundness: This physical management skill is sadly missing in the academic soundness of learning and evaluation processes. CBSE hasn't delivered when it comes to academic standards.
• What experts do: Subject experts decide what is to be taught and to what depth. Then the textbooks are prepared, written by some more experts. These are generally high-quality books.
• Where is the problem: Problem lies with the evaluation process, and feedback effects on learning process. Students and teachers will change over to better pedagogy provided evaluation depends on it. So the Class XI and XII syllabus for Physics is clearly demarcated, and since Boards (evaluation) are for only XII, hence the XI portion gets a short shrift. 
• Still worse: The CBSE philosophy is "maximum good to the maximum number". So it has put relatively easier topics in XII Physics and tougher ones in XI. The net result for learning is very bad!
• Evaluation decides learning: Clearly, it is the final exam (evaluation) that decides how things are taught and learnt. But evaluation process is being run with one goal - maximum students must pass, and many with very high marks. That is what "moderation" does. Question papers are moderated to make them not too challenging. Any good conceptual exam paper leads to a virtual revolt! The Parliament may also get angry at it.
• Generous marking: Every year, the pass percentage goes up, and number of students getting more than 95% grows. The whole evaluation process becomes a farce as even 100% scorers are growing. Most excellent institutes of higher learning have stopped taking these marks seriously, and conduct their own tests. What a fall. (Why not take it seriously? Because the scores do not represent students' power of critical thinking, and ability to assimilate concepts)
• Race to the top: This is actually not a race to the top, but to the bottom. The long-term consequences of this grade-inflation will kill the reputation of education. Don't be populist, CBSE, be learning-focused.

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