Fuss Over Academic ‘Standard’

Context: The exam-centric nature of our education system has been ignored to define the reflexivity and sensitivity of young minds and thus does not encourage authentic reflections.

Issues with our ‘academic standards’:

• Obsession with the standard: It means essentially three things:
  • The act of bombarding students with a ceaseless flow of assignments.
  • Creating a notion of ‘productivity by putting enormous pressure on them to ‘perform’.
  • Above all, the one-dimensional emphasis on grading and hierarchising.
• Killing the spirit of young minds: Spirit of the studentship is destroyed as a student is transformed into a machine— a machine that ceaselessly produces or manufactures seminar papers. This kills sensitivity and reflexivity.
• Kills originality, authentic expression, and unique and independent analysis:
  • In fact, it would not be wrong to say that the root of plagiarism lies in this practice.
  • Students have been reduced to consumers; their professors keep asking them to consume all sorts of bookish knowledge, often leading to plagiarism.
  • Seldom are our students and teachers encouraged to think and redefine the world in their own ways.
• Lacking ethics: We are creating ‘specialists’ without conscience, books without life-affirming vibrations, and ‘toppers’ without empathy.

Way Forward:

• Question the fetish of the standard: One can learn and unlearn only when one is a seeker with a deconditioned, dialogic and relaxed mind.
• Promote originality: Our colleges and universities should stop teaching history and accountancy, biology and management, or Plato and Aristotle.
• Move away from standardisation: It ought to be realised that ‘academic standard’ has no meaning if it exists as merely a measurable index.
• Matching ethics with skills: The only standard that matters is whether, as learners, we are sensitive and empathic (not restless competitors) and compassionate and dialogic (not egoists intoxicated with degrees and certificates).

Conclusion: Creating ‘toppers’ without empathy is like echoing with TS Eliot: ‘Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?/Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?