Board Exams versus ‘Joy of Learning’

With the NBSE Class 10 board examinations underway, thousands of students across Nagaland state are feeling the immense societal pressure and expectation to perform well. For most, the road that has led them to the hard cold bench and desk of the examination hall has been a long and tedious one. Dozens of tests, pre-selections and selections have grilled and prepared them for this defining moment of their lives. Along the way, fellow comrades who did not fare well in the ‘drilling sessions’ were dropped and only the competent ones  have moved on towards the  finale.  

Board exams have always been a determining factor of a school and now with the upsurge of so many private schools in recent years, competition has become fiercer. Most schools prepare their students for the board exams from the beginning of the year, classes start as early as January for the 10th standards. By the time they sit for the actual board exams, students have undergone so many tests that appearing it becomes monotonous and robotic for them.

The pressure of the board exams is even more on the students of reputed schools who have had cent percent results consecutively for years. These schools have a reputation to uphold and failure is not an option for the students. In such cases some students develop an examination fear psychosis, learning becomes a task and they lose their ability to enjoy learning.

“The joy of learning is more likely to make an appearance when teachers permit students to work at their own level and their own pace, avoiding making comparisons among students. Children should be taught to evaluate and monitor their own learning so they can tell when they’re making progress. Some pupils will take longer than others,” quotes Finnish educators, Rantala and Määttä.

For some schools, the filtration process for the board exams begin early. “Only those students who are competent and are “sure” to get through the board exams are promoted to the 10th standard,” says the teacher of a reputed private school in Kohima.

A school’s credibility is established through the board exam results, examination at the end becomes more school centric and less about the students. Once the results are out, the primary focus is on which school holds the most positions in the coveted top fifty and which school has cent percent results.

The joy of learning is lost somewhere along the way in this mad craze of competition. What is the purpose of such examinations then? Are the board examinations just a means of getting into good institutions for the students? Or is it a means of establishing the credibility of schools? Are the learning abilities of students being compromised in the process?

 

“Developing a capacity for joy is a fundamental human right in education,” says Annie Murphy Paul.  The existing code of conduct of examination has to be seriously questioned and evaluated to bring back the joy of learning into classrooms where there is more to education than just sitting for exams and getting good grades.