PANJIM: While hailing the State government’s decision to cancel class X board examination in the “interest of students”, the educationists are of the view that examination is just a “tool” to understand where a student stands on academic front and not their overall development.
The experts also maintain that evaluating student based on the internal marks is in line with the National Education Policy (NEP), which Goa is set to implement with the “foundation stage” – that includes three years of pre-primary school, Class I and II – from the coming Academic Year 2021-22.
Former director of Higher Education Bhaskar Nayak said that the examination is no more a milestone. He said that the developed countries, from where India adopted the culture of conducting Class X Board exams, today have no such public exams and students are being promoted based on the assessment of internal marks. “Public exams does not make child’s overall assessment; it just gives academic report, which can be even done by evaluating internal marks,” he said.
Nayak said that he was of the strong view that government should have declared the academic year 2019-20 and 2020-21 as ‘Zero Academic Year’ in the view of COVID-19 pandemic. “Even the National Education Policy has envisaged upon internal mark evaluation,” he said.
The expert however opined the need to conduct a common entrance exams for the students based on the type of skill and programme the child want to opt for.
He said that there must be many criticizing the government decision, but as an academician, I welcome the decision.
Former director of Education Anil Pawar too believe that assessing students based on internal marks is going to be the future of the education sector in India. “Exams, especially the public one, are just a tool which helps parents to know whether their child stands in the society. It has nothing to do with the overall development of the student,” he said.
Education is not just learning and writing exams, it is a continuous…never-ending process, he said adding ‘examination is not the ultimate’. “We have to understand that education is not just maths, science, history, English…it is an exercise aimed to build up a child overall growth,” Pawar said.
Pawar explained that just the way the learning process has shifted from schooling to digital or online mode; it’s time we shift from examination to overall evaluation of child.
BJP MLA and chairman of a State Task Force on NEP Subhash Shirodkar said ‘there are many more exams lined up in future for the student…SSC exams is not the ultimate. In fact, NEP envisages upon internal assessment and overall development of the child rather than focusing on examination’.
Shirodkar said that internal assessment is the best method of evaluation as the student is tested throughout the academic year rather than only at time of public exam.
However, former Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar believes that the students lost the opportunity to test themselves at an important academic level. “Mass promotions are good but not at this point. Students lost an opportunity to test themselves at a very important stage of life. The examination was required to know how much student has able to learn through e-learning mode,” he said.
Refusing to be part of the debate, president of Goa Headmasters Association Mariano Valdares said that as a stakeholder they had proposed to Goa Board to cancel the SSC exams and promote students based on internal assessment. “The decision is in the interest of students. We are in second wave and have no idea as when the third wave will hit the State. We cannot risk student lives for examination,” he said.
Admitting that cancellation of examination has meted out injustice to those students, who have studied very hard for the final examination, Valdares said “you cannot compromise lives for sake of grade or for merit list’.
