Why should someone fail the school exam?

There is a hustle and bustle this year too, as over 90% of the students passed the SSLC. In fact, I don’t see why a student should fail the school exam. I had the opportunity to see the presentation of a hundred schools as part of the Harita Vidyalayam Television program. We have visited a dozen schools ourselves. We were very impressed with the wide variety and depth of the activities that take place in our schools. In addition to the heavy program, all kinds of clubs are working, such as agriculture club, science club, social science club, literature club, drama club, math club, eco club, quiz club, etc.

Students are also involved in various social service activities. In addition, there are study visits to various historical and cultural sites. Overall, students are exposed to today’s society and its problems in a creative way and also initiate activities that allow them to be part of the solutions in their humble ways. Who can say that our schools do not allow them to become the good citizens of tomorrow? Of course, the SSLC book has a certificate stating “eligible for graduate study” printed on it. This marks the exam passing event. But how is it that the sole purpose of school education is to enable everyone to go to higher education?

School education is for everyone, and society needs all of these children – even those who cannot meet NCERT standards in math or science. They also contribute to the growth and well-being of society and also to make our life rich and meaningful. Why should we fail them in SSLC saying that they are not good enough in math, science or English? If a student has very good talent in music, why should we deny them the opportunity to go to graduate school in music, just because they are not good enough at math? Of course, if someone wants to become an engineer, he / she has to be successful in math and physics.

Likewise, one who wants to do medicine should be successful in biology and chemistry. But why should we mark everyone with the same scale and declare success or failure? The purpose of school exams should not be to label everyone as good, average, or bad. It is simply a question of revealing what are the strengths and weaknesses of each young person and of giving indications on the areas in which they can specialize. But somehow people feel that an exam that few fail is not of a high standard. And they’re talking about the good old days when SSLC was held in high regard. But, please, what was the high level of the SSLC exam at the time?

Of the hundred or so children who entered class I, barely fifty made it to class X. And about 60% failed the SSLC exam. This means that only about 20 percent of young people made it through the SSLC. And what happens to them? What do they get from school other than a certificate that says they are good for nothing? Is this the goal of schooling? I beg you not to agree.

The KITE site registers 2.13 crore of visits

Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education’s results portal www.results.itschool.gov.in registered an impressive 2.13 crore “clicks” when the SSLC results were reported on May 3rd. A total of 15 lakh people visited the site that day. Up to 81 percent of users viewed results via mobile devices, while 16 percent used laptops and desktops and 2 percent used tablets.
Android was the preferred operating system for browsing (80%) while 13% browsed through the Windows operating system. In total, 94.90% of users are from India and 4.5% from Gulf countries. In this, the United Arab Emirates exceeded 2 percent.

Chrome browsers exceeded 54%, while Android Webview came in second with 13.6% and UC browser in third with 12.5%. The Firefox browser was used by four percent. The once favorite Internet Explorer browser could not even register 0.5 percent of users. MK Anvar Sadath, vice president and executive director of KITE, told Deccan Chronicle that they also made the results available through their “SAPHALAM 2018” mobile app, which was downloaded by more than 50,000 users from the Google Playstore. The app came in second in education sector trends in the early hours of reporting.

The results were hosted in the cloud as text for easy viewing and access, resulting in a response time of less than two seconds for the portal. It was greatly appreciated by the user community. “We would also make upper secondary results available on the same portal and the same mobile app and a new mobile view mechanism would also be enabled in the portal for easy viewing on mobile devices,” Sadath said. In addition to the individual results, the website and mobile app contained an analysis of results at the school, school district and tax district levels, infographics, subject analyzes and study reports.

(The author is an eminent educator)

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