Looking beyond exams

Context: School/university examinations cannot be regarded as the soul of the learning experience. There is a need to reimagine a kind of education that radiates the spirit of love, care, and integral learning which is needed in the post-COVID world.

Flaws in the examination system: 

• Examination as ceremonies of power: 

• Seeks to objectify and ‘’discipline” students, 
• Places them in a scale of measurement and comparison
• Promotes the psychology of hyper-competitiveness, envy, and sado-masochism.

• Deprives a learner: of immeasurable and qualitative experiences associated with meaningful learning. For E.g.

• The inner churning implicit in a poetic act of reding William Wordsworth or Rabindranath Tagore.
• The ecstasy of wonder in looking at the sky and exploring the physics of the solar system.

• Misrepresentation of Exam-warrior: As an ‘exam warrior’, one must go through the life-killing process of drilling, mock tests and instant consumption of knowledge capsules
• Chronic Anxiety: of exams takes away their meditative space which is needed to make sense of the issues related to fear of death, science, uncertainty, disease, and stigma.
• Neglect of Digital Divide: In an unequal society like India’s, both the parents and students are severely stressed due to their inability to attend online classes. 
• Reduced role of teachers: into a non-reflexive/ obedient cog has made them merely a mediator between official curriculum and students. Their role limited to:

• Cover the syllabus, Restore order, Conduct examination, grade or measure students and Supply data to higher authorities.

Way Forward: 

• No harm in refusing to conduct the examination: and declaring the results based on their previously written papers.
• Strive for a kind of education: which stresses more on

• Inner flowing, physical/mental and spiritual growth;
• Art of relatedness with nature and community
• Everyday challenges that inspire young learners to relate theory and practice.

• Redefining the meaning of good teacher: They should act as catalysts and walk together as we pass through the curved trajectory of life.

• E.g. the Teacher could tell a student about the extraordinary stories of Gandhi’s Noakhali days in 1946 instead memorizing the date of Gandhi-Irwin pact.
• Listening to student’s fear and anxiety amidst pandemic, reciting a poem from Tagore’s Gitanjali, and creating a sacred moment of love and prayers.

Quote: The spirit of life-affirming education has to be rescued from the alliance of academic bureaucrats and traders of ‘knowledge’.