Category: Indian Education: Depriving Childhood

School And Board Exams Are Dead. Long Live School And Board Exams.

The Prime Minister of India is the lead decision-maker. The Who’s Who of Cabinet Ministers is participating. The Supreme Court of India is keeping a keen eye on the proceedings. The country is awaiting the result with bated breath. Finally, the result is out: The school and board exams have been failed, meaning cancelled.

The decision is termed ground-breaking by an adulating media. The Government of India gets full marks for considering the safety of children as paramount. All the stakeholders congratulate each other on the quid pro quo. CBSE, ICSE and the State Boards get busy conjuring up convoluted assessment criteria for the formality of passing the children.

So, from the perspective of children and parents isn’t the cancellation of school and board exams good, rather great? Well, it depends on how one perceives the difference it has made to the lives of children and parents, and as I see it, the difference is zilch, not even minimal. Yes, the kids don’t have to go through the drudgery, but apart from that, what’s the change?

Entrance Exams Matter

What matters for the admissions to the under-graduate courses of all hues: Entrance Exams.

What makes children and parents lose their night’s sleep and hard-earned money respectively: The coaching for entrance exams.

Where’s the money to be made by educational institutions/coaching centres: Entrance Exams.

What gets advertised in media as success stories of children: The performance in entrance exams.

Who’s the current deity of the Indian education system: Entrance Exams.

With so much control and power wielded by entrance exams, school and board exams were anyways on the back-burner. Ask any child/parent from 6th/7th grade onwards on what is the focus in the coming years and the answer will be: Entrance Exams. Yes, passing in school and board exams is mandatory with some crooked %, but that’s about it.

So, with a situation like this, how does the cancellation of only school and board exams help a child? Has JEE been scrapped? Does NEET go anywhere? Is there any change in CLAT status? Or for that matter, the plethora of entrance exams conducted separately by each of the private universities? Nope, no cancellations for any of these.

Does cancellation of school and board exams mean that children won’t have to go out during COVID-19? Well, they will have to go out – To write the entrance exams. Some novel coronavirus is this – it affects kids when they go out to write school and board exams, but is utterly harmless when they go out to write entrance exams.

If the Government of India/Supreme Court of India is so concerned about the well-being of children, why not cancel these entrance exams too? They won’t, they can’t. They understand that currently, the foundation of the education fiefdom is entrance exams and not the poor yesteryear’s star – school and board exams.

School and Board Exams Are Redundant

One might feel that the above narrative is needless nitpicking about the cancellation of exams. Rather, this shows the correct pecking order in the Indian education system and it is time that school and board exams are called out for what they are: An old relic with no significance/justification of its continued existence, out of sync with the changing times.

School and board exams have had no innovation ever since. It remains a celebration of a child’s excellence in rote learning. The COVID-19 pandemic allowed us to come up with options for the incompetent and futile ritual of yearly exams. Rather than coming up with alternatives, their cancellation conveys that we cannot look beyond them.

Now that they are cancelled, does any child/parent/school/board/education expert miss them? No. Has the cancellation led to any adverse impact on the future of anyone/anything? No. If something is not missed, if its absence doesn’t lead to any undesirable outcome, was it really serving any purpose for anyone at all?

This is not to say that entrance exams are any good. It is another case of the cure being worse than the disease. However, let’s take one step at a time.

Let’s agree that school and board exams were/are no good. As there has been a precedence of two school years without them, it is time to build on it by coming up with alternatives and not going back to the old junk. A flight of fantasy, anyone?

Long Live School And Board Exams

Knowing the Indian education system, its proclivity to control and resist change, it won’t be long before the school and board exams will be back.

Last heard, CBSE has come up with a brainwave of two Board exams for 2021-22. What else? The purposeless and aimless saga of school and board exams continues. Ministry of Education is all for striving to be renamed as Ministry of Examinations.

What are your views on this subject?

PS: I am a stay-at-home father to six-year-old twin daughters, neither an educationist nor an expert, just growing up together with my children. The above thoughts are an expression of parenting is having an opinion, getting involved and trying to better.

Stand UP, Speak OUT!!! #IAmAParent.

Indian Education System Needs Hands-On Parental Involvement

Education is liberating. Education is doing justice to the immense potential one is born with and also the learnings throughout life. It is about contributing to society, making the world a better place and being human. You would say, we all know this. What’s new? Now, contrast this to the Indian Education System.

Indian Education System is rote. Indian Education System is getting marks and grades and cracking the entrance exams. It is joyless, devoid of real-life applications, sucks out creativity and curiosity, and more so, depriving childhood to children. You would say, we all know this. What’s new? That is precisely the point.

All of us know how important Education is to human life. And all of us also know how dissociated the Indian Education System is from the stated objectives of Education. All of us are aware of the obvious disconnect; yet, we are a willing part of the broken system.  You would say, National Education Policy (NEP) has come and the situation is changing/will change for the better.

Well, all the changes till now have been for the worse. Instead of one JEE, now we have two with NEET also thrown in. The Government is so much in awe of centralized entrance exams, the plan is to have them for all the courses. At the other end of the spectrum, formal schooling will start from 3 years onwards. The sooner the initiation into the rote, the better for the child seems to be the thinking.

What’s the change for the better in all these? Rather, the Indian Education System is getting deeper into the swamp with a further lethal focus on marks, grades, entrance exams, coaching classes. In short, it is a march to more of the same.

In such a scenario, who/what can lead to change?

Parental Involvement

Who has the highest stakes in the education of a child, apart from the child? The parents. Who is affected the most by the constructive/dysfunctional imparting of Education? The parents.  Who has the least say, rather no say in the running of the Indian Education System? The parents.

This is beyond belief. The parents who have the skin in the game are on the side-lines and have no role. Whereas, the people who benefit by perpetuating the rote without any genuine changes to the defunct system are running the show. What incentives do the administrators/establishment/Government, or for that matter even the academicians have to change the redundant system?

Let’s get this straight. Who got us into the problem isn’t going to get us out of it. For one, they do not know how to get out of it. Rather, they do not even perceive it as a problem. Second, the perverse incentives to continue with the rote trumps the desire for wanting/thinking a change to the Indian Education System, for it is the rote that gets them all the riches and enhances their power.

In a scenario like this, if a change has to be effected or even contemplated, it can/will happen only through parental involvement. Unless the parents get drawn into the affairs of the Indian Education System, the Education of their children won’t come through. The success in entrance exams, yes; but learning the purpose of Education and one’s living, NO.

Keeping Education Simple and Real-Life

If the parents get involved, the Indian Education System will respond that Education is a serious task.  Only a highly qualified/trained/experienced person, in short, one from within the system, can do justice to the Education of the child. Parents are non-qualified for the job and they are better off handing over the responsibilities of educating their children to the Indian Education System only.

Wait a moment. Are we talking about rocket science or nuclear physics or CABG surgery?  All these are highly specialized fields and requires years of training to make a meaningful impact. But, here we are talking about the Education of 3-year-olds, or maybe 7-year-olds, or for that matter even 15-year-olds. What is so Elon Musk-ish about it?

All of us have gone through the vigour of the Indian Education System. Yet, we are considered inept to comment/be a part of the same system that we so successfully sailed through! The system will educate the child, but once an adult, s/he is not welcome to the system anymore. What an irony?

Indian Education System uses the jargons to make it sound and feel complicated to scare away the outsiders. The Establishment makes the Education so complex, erect so many entry barriers – All to protect their turf. If the Education of 3/6/9/12/15 years old is really tortuous for a parent, who is an adult, to make head and tail out of and to intervene, does the poor child even have an iota of chance?

Why can’t Education be simple and real-life? The Indian Education System won’t let us see-through, for it will be known to all that Education is actually straightforward and possible without the confines of the classroom. Real Education, in fact, needs a giant and open classroom, also known as Life.

Education Is Important, Not The Indian Education System

Education is sacrosanct. But in India, we bestow this honour to the Indian Education System, and not the Education, per se. For us, the messenger has become sacred, and not the message. The message – Education is getting diluted by the day and the messenger – Indian Education System is getting hefty by the day at the expense of the message. An unrivalled Indan paradox.

For the sake of our children and their childhood, for the sake of a better and just society, and yes, for the sake of Education; it is time we reset the narrative and call the bluff. We, the parents, have to get involved hands-on in Indian Education System, now.

What are your views on this subject?

PS: I am a stay-at-home father to six-year-old twin daughters, neither an educationist nor an expert, just growing up together with my children. The above thoughts are an expression of parenting is having an opinion, getting involved and trying to better.

Stand UP, Speak OUT!!! #IAmAParent.

School Bag Policy 2020: Weight Of School Bags Increases Further

I have written about how School Bag Policy 2020 is a casual and miserable attempt to help students. The policy is such a wretched document that just the primer and the notification took up an entire article. In fact, each sentence of the policy is such a gem in itself that even an epic cannot do justice to its marvellous and spectacular silliness and stupidity.

Anyhow, to keep the discussion short and save you the long-winded road to nowhere, let’s go directly to the recommendations in the School Bag Policy 2020 for the reduction in the weight of school bags.

Pass The Buck To Parents And Students

Sample some of the advice put forth in School Bag Policy 2020:

  • School Bag Awareness Programme needs to be held in the beginning of every academic session, wherein parents and students would get orientation on this issue.
  • Information about the heavy bag needs to be communicated to the parents of the child and the bag needs to be monitored for a week or two for ensuring that the child starts carrying a lighter bag.
  • Counseling sessions for students to bring lighter school bags. Parents are asked to monitor the weight of school bag.

Does the policy imply that it is a hobby of students to lug heavy school bags to schools? Does the policy assume that every parent wants their child to be a champion weight-lifter and hence deck them up with the hefty school bags? Or is there a hypothesis that each day children carry some kind of hidden treasure from their respective homes to unload into the schools?

Each parent of a school-going child and the child will vouch that they have no say in what’s to be carried to schools each day. The schools barrel them down with textbooks and reference books, notebooks and activity books, diaries and journals etc. What options do the parents and the children have apart from toeing the line, paying the bills and hauling the school bags?

Who needs to attend the School Bag Awareness Programme? The parents and the children or the flawed educational establishment? The schools themselves have stuffed the school bags and mandated them to be carried in full. What purpose does the information to the parents about the heavy bags serve? Who needs counseling here? The expert group who drew up the School Bag Policy 2020 is a sure-shot candidate, but the students???

Cloud Cuckoo Land

The reality as mentioned by the expert group is in stark reality to the flight of fantasy recommendations arrived at by the same fanciful group, in the same report.

The reality: In Classes I-II, the homework hours vary from 0 to 2 hours daily. Whereas, for Classes III onwards, it varies from 2 to 5 hours daily.

The recommendation: NO homework up to Class II and a maximum of two hours a week from Classes III-V.

The expert group knows that children are loaded with homework. Yet, it makes a pious announcement that there shall be no homework going ahead. Who is going to ensure the implementation of this cuckoo recommendation?

The reality: Though only 2 subjects are recommended for Class I-II, yet many schools offer other subjects. For Classes III-V, beyond NCF-2005 recommendations, there is a range of subjects which is offered by the schools.

The recommendation: As per the NCF-2005, schools shall offer two Languages and Mathematics in Classes I-II and two Languages, Mathematics and Environmental Studies in Classes III-V.

Nation Curriculum Framework 2005 exists since 2005. Yet, the schools do not follow it. What makes the expert group think that now suddenly the schools will consider it a gospel?

The reality: Schools prescribe more than one textbook for the same subject in secondary and higher secondary classes.

What? Leave aside school bags, why not penalize these schools for violating basic norms?

The expert group has unearthed all the above reality in their survey. And the expert group knows very well that the schools are a law unto themselves and there is no curbing their behaviour. Yet, it gives sermons to follow the laid-down directives that nobody has followed till now, not following as on date and not going to follow in future.

The Other Gems

  • The issues related to heavy school bag need to be included in the pre-service and in-service teacher education curriculum.
  • Designing of textbooks with less information and more space to experiential learning.
  • Students need to be taught on how to use ‘filing’ in an efficient and intelligent way.

Well, I am going to stop here. Hope you get the picture.

In nutshell, the National School Bag Policy 2020 is full of inanities and absurd recommendations.

Ministry of Education, CBSE, NCERT, Schools, Expert Group – are aware of what goes into the making of a heavy school bag. They, themselves, are part of the problem and they cannot be expected to arrive at a solution. With them at the helm of affairs and their beloved School Bag Policy 2020, the weight of school bags is only going to increase further.

The real solution is fair and simple – School Bag Free Education. I will write about it in the next article.

PS: I am a stay-at-home father to six-year-old twin daughters, neither an educationist nor an expert. The above thoughts are an expression of parenting is having an opinion, getting involved and trying to better.

Stand UP, Speak OUT!!! #IAmAParent.

School Bag Policy 2020: A Casual And Miserable Attempt To Help Students

Ministry of Education, Government of India released School Bag Policy 2020 on 24th November 2020. One might think that now the load of the school children has been taken care of. The children and the parents can have a sigh of relief. Finally, the issue of “weight of school bags” has been resolved.

Wrong on all the counts. The so-called School Bag Policy 2020 has nothing, repeat nothing, to lessen the burden of school children. At best, it is a casual and miserable attempt to address a crucial issue and ends up doing a disservice to the future generations of the country.

Let’s go through what the School Bag Policy 2020 has to offer.

The Primer

School Bag Policy 2020 is an 83-page document. A policy expected to lighten the weight is itself bulky. You would suppose the Government policies are meant to be cumbersome. Else, what’s the proof of the long-winded deliberations made?

It has been drawn up by an expert group of 7 administrators and academicians. You would wonder why the parents and the primary stake-holders i.e. the children would not get to discuss and decide on an issue that affects them the most. Well, that is not how the know-all and decide-all Indian Government is known to function.

The policy has been made in reference to the judgment of Madras High Court dated 19.05.2018, a good two and a half years before the policy announcement date. The Expert Group members met four times from October to December 2018, so that the report could finally see the light of the day 2 years later. But, again you would know that the wheels of the Government move slowly.

The policy refers to Learning without Burden, Report of the Yash Pal Committee, (MHRD, 1993); The Children’s School Bag (Limitation on Weight) Bill, 2006; CBSE Circular No.07.2006 on Subject – Reducing the Bag Load on Children and 4 other documents of guidelines/measures/decisions on managing the weight of school bags.

You would wonder if such has been the history of our failed attempts to rein in the weight of school bags, how the latest one will succeed. Needless to say, the current one does not list earlier efforts as failures or mentions any learning from them. Anyway, the Government is not expected to be backward looking, so that should be fine.

The Notification

The order of the Under Secretary to the Govt. Of India notifying the School Bag Policy 2020 mentions that “the School Bag Policy would be suitably modified/revised”. This is beyond belief. I mean what can be more meaningless than this.

You are announcing a certain policy after so much huffing and puffing. And when you do it, you say in the same breath that it will be changed. Then, what’s the whole purpose of huffing and puffing? Why not publish the policy after “suitable modification/revision”? But, I suppose all these are trivial to the mighty Indian Government. Maybe, another expert group is already in the pipeline. Who knows?

The notification mentions “The compliance report in this regard may be shared with this Department”. That’s it. No mention of the format/frequency/scope/process/time-line of the compliance report. No mention, at all. You would suppose the compliance report is a top-secret hush-hush affair. The lesser mortals should not get to know how Government compliance happens.

You would think the notification will list the essence of the policy or the major recommendations of the policy. Again wrong. The notification tom-toms the NEP 2020 and nothing but the NEP 2020. From the phrasing of the notification, you would be forgiven to believe that it is for the promotion of NEP 2020 and not about some abstract notion of School Bag Policy 2020. Well, the Government has to multi-task, beyond the understanding of common citizens.

Meaning of School Bag

The expert group has elucidated the meaning of school bag as per the Collins English Dictionary and Cambridge English Dictionary “verbatim” for reference. You would just love these guys, wouldn’t you? I mean they take the weight of school bags so literally and exactly – the physical load. Unless for them, how would anyone know the meaning of the words “school bag”?

The expert group would not venture into the mental load of non-comprehension i.e. the curriculum load. To be fair to them, they have mentioned it once and I have picked the terminology from them. But that’s about it and no further. Maybe, it is another expert group’s weighing up – the mental load on the school children.

Casual And Miserable

Well, I did not take up the School Bag Policy 2020 for an enlightening on the insipid working of the Government of India. But, that’s what happened before I reached the main contents of the much-awaited but utterly indecisive and faltering policy. The Government’s approach is casual and miserable, to say the least.

Does anyone really expect a Government policy made with so much preponderance to help children in any manner possible? Spending a precious two and half years to come up with a wishy-washy policy not even worth the paper it will be printed upon is surely not an approach to deal with an essential issue of India’s future generations. India’s children deserve better.

Please read here, the recommendations of the School Bag Policy 2020 and how it will further increase the weight of school bags.

PS: I am a stay-at-home father to six-year-old twin daughters, neither an educationist nor an expert. The above thoughts are an expression of parenting is having an opinion, getting involved and trying to better.

Stand UP, Speak OUT!!! #IAmAParent.

Entrance Exams Bypass Childhood To Adulthood Rat Race

These days, the conversation about the kids starts with the only question: “Which School?” We answer that our six-year-old twin daughters do not go to school because they are children. Invariably, regardless of the background of the person, the second question tossed to us has been “But then what about the entrance exams?”

The follow-up questions could have been raised about their learning, education, exposure, interactions, experiences etc for they do not go to school. We, parents, could have been grilled about our thinking and approach for not sending our daughters to school. However, none of these queries gets raised. The second question has always been about the entrance exams.

I don’t get this, at all. Why should anyone raise a question about an event that is a decade down the line? That too, with an air of certainty that the said event is a must-happen occurrence which the child should/must/ has to compulsorily get through. Why the rush? What’s the hurry? Why the unreserved single-minded focus and dedication for entrance exams?

Entrance Exams Are The Reality

I agree that the people who raise a concern about our six-years-old daughters’ lack of preparation for entrance exams have a valid point. In the Indian context, that’s the only point. It is true that unless for the entrance exams, the child does not seem to have a future in today’s India when s/he grows up to be an adult.

Be it the JEE/NEET/CAT/CLAT/CA/CS/IAS or whatever/wherever, there is no escaping the claws of the entrance exams. The private institutions, not to be left behind, have entrance exams of their own. The Institutes of Eminence need to be Eminent. So, how do they go about it? Entrance exams, of course (if only, the world rankings were based on the number of students taking the entrance exams).

There is nothing “New” in the New Education Policy (NEP) to make tomorrow’s India any different from today vis-à-vis entrance exams. When there is no alternative, when there is no notion of a substitute, what really is left to be done? Fall in line and fight it out for the endangered seats. It is a dog-eat-dog world when it comes to college admissions – public/private, JNU/Amity, even fly-by-night!!

All these mean that as soon as a child is born, s/he starts getting wired to be prepared for the impending entrance exams. That’s what the “well-meaning” people ask us when we tell that our children do not go to school. Just that the meaning remains limited to the future of the child decade from today and not today per se. What’s the fuss about childhood?

The Double-Standard Adults

Ask any adult. What’s the life-stage they would want to re-live? What are the memories they cherish? The answer will be childhood. There is a distinct possibility that an adult of today might have an abused childhood. In this case, re-draft the question: What’s the life-stage they would want to re-live “better”? The answer, again, will be childhood.

Today’s adult (parents and grand-parents included) attaches utmost importance to his/her by-gone childhood. But, the same adult has scant regard for the childhood of his/her children. S/he cannot think beyond the entrance exams. What else?

Ask any adult. What do you think where would you be a decade from today? Please list out the sacrifices for today basis the deliverables to your family in future. For example, save on your OTT subscriptions so that the child’s future can be invested in. A realistic question: What’s the contingency plan should you lose your job/vocation? In all probability, the said adult will laugh/scream out.

The adult that cannot plan for his/her future, essentially no thoughts or at best, some hazy ideas, has already thought through the child’s future and put into action. Entrance exams. What else?

As adults, we say that we prioritize creativity, fresh ideas, out-of-box thinking (I would have used more jargons, but I left the corporate job 4 years back). We say that individuality matters. What’s more, we want our child to be unique, just like us!! To back the pretending parents, the schools, with assembly lines (pun intended), promises to churn out exceptional and exclusively chiselled, only one of its kind, child!!

So, how do adults/schools go about this project of raising/schooling a “distinctive/innovative” child?

Common Entrance Exams for all the children, with not a single child left behind. Mission Accomplished.

The Missed Childhood

It is the sign of the dysfunctional and dystopian society wherein the success of the individual gets decided as early as the coding taught to a six-year-olds. What if STEM learning does not teach a child problem-solving skills? How will a child cope unless s/he is skilled and qualified to excel in the future entrance exams?

We are almost made to believe that if our children are not prepared for the entrance exams, we are doing a disservice to them. We are robbing them of their chance to have productive adulthood and setting them up for a failed future. Fair point.

I have not been able to raise a counterpoint that the child who is being groomed for entrance exams, throughout the childhood, can/might raise a minor query sometime in life that s/he was robbed of his/her growing up years. Won’t a childhood endowed with stress-free play and learning, along with, lead to a better chance of being a well-grounded adult? Isn’t this a fair point, as well?

What’s your view about the fait accompli of entrance exams on children’s formative years?

Even Without COVID-19, Schools May Not Open In India

There are many things in life that go beyond logic and common sense. In India, we have one such event unfolding right now. Schools were shut down in March 2020 as a precautionary measure for COVID-19. Now, though it has become crystal clear that India has a sole distinction, in the entire world, of a single wave of COVID-19, with the peak coming 5 months back, schools continue to remain closed even now. It seems that even without COVID-19, schools may not open in India.

I know that schools will surely open, sometime in future. However, why the schools remain closed, as on date, is beyond me. Even more baffling is the complete silence of all the stake-holders on the continued closure of schools. Everyone is aware that everything is open in India but the schools and THAT is acceptable to all. No discussion, no questions raised, utter conformity.

What could be the reasons for this fact-of-life behaviour?

The Indian Government

Ministry of Education should be renamed Ministry of Examinations. This one statement shows the sole priority of the Indian Government. It has come up with guidelines and guidelines to open schools; and no action when the schools do not open.

The Indian Government seems to think that if anything goes wrong in the case of children, the Indian electorate will be unforgiving. Why take the unnecessary risk of getting into action mode? Anyways, the priority of Indian parents is NEET/JEE, so we shall conduct that, nonetheless. Rest is business as usual, rather no business at all.

The Indian Parents

There is no discussion on whether online education is delivering, the child is learning, all the children are benefiting – why bother? What matters is that our children go on to the next grade at the end of the year. Across the spectrum of Indian economic and social order, this seems to be the only driving factor.

The Private Schools

2020 might, in fact, turn out to be the most profitable year in history. Collect the fees from the parents. Dock the salaries of the teachers. Remove the support staff. Bare minimum establishment costs. Why bother about the Government protocols to open the schools when the charade of online learning has such a huge payback?

At worst, 5-10% of the parents will be unable to pay the fees. Rest all of them will, of course, pay. Which Indian parent can suffer the ignominy of the school admission of his/her child revoked?

The Government Schools

Even before COVID-19, Pratham ASER surveys showed the dismal learning outcomes of the Government schools. Why bother needlessly during the pandemic, or even after? Rather at all.

The Government School Teachers

The salary continues to get paid, regardless. What’s the nuisance going on about student’s learning?

The Private School Teachers

The threat from the school management of dismissal from the job looms large. Better to remain silent, take the salary whatever is getting paid and get on with the job of online teaching. Anyways, distant-teaching is not any different than in-person teaching. It was a monologue then, it is a monologue now, with the extra benefit of no need to check on the student’s attention.

Moreover, some parents have opted for private tuitions, so the net income has increased. Let the school closure continue.

The Indian Media

The headline-hunters work best from the confines of the TV studio/newsrooms. Reporting from the ground-up is long forgotten. The press releases, the politician’s quotes, tweets are the news.

What’s the fuss about school opening or closures? It is not a newsworthy item. Forget it.

The Indian Society

Once the children are enrolled in schools, they are learning, whether it is in school or online. The school report card at the end of the year is the holy truth, rest all is a myth. So, no questions asked.

Actually, when we were in school ourselves, we were taught to toe the line and not ask questions. It holds us in good stead even now. See for yourself.

The Social Scientists/Experts/Researchers

Getting into the cross-hairs of the mighty Indian Government and the equally powerful school lobby is a taboo. Repeat after me, whatever they do is right.

The Children

Online learning is no fun. For that matter, even the schools were no fun either. Cannot figure out what is worse. Anyways, let me continue my screen time. It is educational, everybody agrees now.

Why would not schools open?

I know the situation is not bad as I have made it out to be. There are lots of diligent teachers and hard-working students that are trying their level best to ensure the efficacy of online learning. I do not mean any disrespect to them. But, it is a different matter for the other actors mentioned above.

If the opening of schools is such a big pain-point, why not prioritize teachers and the support staff in vaccination? We do not do that also, and will not open schools also. There doesn’t seem to be a perceptible difference with schools closed that warrants urgency/an action plan.

Why would you think the schools have STILL not opened in India, with COVID-19 vanishing in a single wave and the approval of Covishield and Covaxin?

PS: I am a stay-at-home father to six-year-old twin daughters, neither an educationist nor an expert. The above thoughts are an expression of parenting is having an opinion, getting involved and trying to better.

Ministry of Education Should Be Renamed Ministry of Examinations

Recently, Ministry of Human Resource Development was renamed Ministry of Education by Government of India. A well-meaning gesture, one would say. A long-winding name, hard to decipher, gets replaced by a sweet and short one. The new name connotes the priority and objective of the department – what it upholds and works for. However, basis the actual actions of the department, I propose to rename it as Ministry of Examinations.

Under normal circumstances, actions of a Government department do not come to a layman’s notice unless it does something truly path-breaking. But these are not regular conditions. This is the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. After the Ministry of Health, if there is one Ministry that would be of utmost importance to citizens – it is the Ministry of Education.

It is the actions during this pandemic that signifies what the Ministry stands for and acts for. This is the time when the students need help, the parents need support for their children, the schools and colleges need back-up aid. Ministry of Education could have taken steps to justify and come true to its new name. It could have been the supreme champion of Indian education and become the most celebrated Ministry in the Government.

In reality, what has been the Ministry up to?

Guidelines and Guidelines and Examinations

Ministry of Education has released umpteen guidelines on online education. There is no follow-up on the efficacy, students left out, execution by the schools etc. The Ministry claimed to circulate a number of online modules for teaching. Again no data on how many students, teachers and schools actually benefitted, the reach etc.

Once the pandemic started to subside, the Ministry released guidelines on reopening of schools and colleges. Post the guidelines, the Ministry went into hibernation with no report on whether the States are following the directions. As on date, few schools and colleges have opened in bits and pieces or they are going to reopen now.

What happens to students left out by online education/unable to cope with the demands of screen-only learning? What about parents that are unable to pay the fees? How about the schools and colleges that do not have the bandwidth for online classes/reopening protocols? What about the well-being of teachers in private schools?

No answers. No ownership. Now, compare this with the self-righteous zeal for JEE/NEET/final-year college exams.

At that point of time, COVID-19 had just about started to recede, but the exams were held nonetheless. There were a big hue and cry by the students and the parents, but ultimately in the dog-eat-dog world of ultra-competitive entrance exams, they had to fall in line.

Though, nothing much has happened post the first-year admissions in engineering/medical colleges. That’s fine. Entrance examinations were mandatory. Final year college exams were a charade and after the graduation, students have few jobs on offer. That’s fine. Final year examinations were mandatory.

What’s the learning from the above-mentioned real-life actions by the Ministry? Mention the word Examinations and the Ministry swings into action. Else, it is the case of some guidelines here and there followed by a prolonged slumber.

No Alternative To Examinations

Indian education is infamous for the single-minded focus on rote learning that can be evaluated only by writing exams. Ministry of Education, coinciding with the name change, released the New Education Policy (NEP). However in that too, the focus on examinations has not got diluted any bit. Apart from the dreadful suggestion of primary education in mother tongue, it has nothing new to offer, least on exams.

The students are told to think out of the box, re-imagine, re-invent and all such theory. However, when it is about coming up with an option to the rote fest, the Ministry is devoid of ideas. Leave aside coming up with an option, we are made to believe that there is no alternative at all.

In regular times, nobody would discuss discarding the fossilized notion of exams that we have. If even during this unprecedented times, we cannot let go of our perception that there is no alternative to the normal exams; what a new normal are we talking about?

To reduce the students’ stress, what has the Ministry done? Reduce the syllabus by 30% but it is the exams for the remaining 70% that will matter. The syllabus can be worked around, but not the exams. The Ministry has let known the priorities to all.

Ministry of Examinations, It Is

All through the COVID-19 pandemic, what have been the maximum interactions of Honourable Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal about? Announcing the examination dates.

What did he speak about other than exams? I have not come across anything. If you get to know, please do share. His Ministry and his good self know nothing other than the exams, exams and the exams. At least, that is what his and the Ministry’s actions show and prove.

In light of the above, I propose to rename the Ministry of Education as Ministry of Examinations.

What are your views on this subject?

PS: PS: I am a stay-at-home father to six-year-old twin daughters, neither an educationist nor an expert. The above thoughts are an expression of parenting is having an opinion, getting involved and trying to better.