Wednesday 22 February 2012

Exam Fever (Fear?) - Then and Now

Arun Tengshe, a brilliant Chemical Engineer and President of a medium sized Public Limited  Engineering company based in Pune has probably Designed, Installed and Commissioned Chemical plants on all Continents over the last 40 years, with extended stays in Japan, Iraq and Oman. He recalls his SSC Exam with humour, but do not miss the underlying message. Or the Post Script I have added. Satish Mutatkar

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Arun Tengshe
Exam  Fever (Fear?) - Then and Now

Present day students and their parents really fear the board exam (Standard X). The reasons could be many but the most important ones seem to be: high stakes on the marks for future career, social pressure, peer pressure since it is the first such “public” exam in a child’s life. Nobody seems to care for the 'knowledge' part. Students start the preparation well in advance (may be from mid or end of 9th standard) and schools do not allow students to forget that they have to prepare for the exam. Most students are busy running between classes and school for 12 to 14 hrs a day. I wonder when can a student peacefully simply read the text books and complete the home work.

I am reminded of my days as a student and my preparations for the board exam. Those days (in 1965-66) it was called Standard XI (Lower SSC in Gujarat). With great difficulty, the school completed the syllabus and preliminary exam on January 24th (not one year before). The board exam was scheduled to star on March 15th.

I went for a selection camp for state level sports from January 27th. After a couple of days of trials, I was selected for the state hockey team. The selected team underwent a 6 days coaching camp and then left by train to go to Shillong, Assam.

After a long train journey (more than 4 days), we reached Shillong. We played the games as scheduled (and lost most of them) and left Shillong after a stay of 10 days. On our way back, we went to Darjeeling for sight- seeing.

Some of the sports persons who were in the state sports teams were in Standard XI but most were not appearing for March exams. They had decided to appear later in October and were surprised to know that I had decided to appear in March itself.
Finally I reached home on March 5th

I had  to now pick up the studies from where I had left in January as I had not taken any books on the “sports outing” ( as I did not expect to get selected). I went to the school and met my teachers. I collected about 25 sets of the preliminary exam question papers of best city schools. In addition to reading the text books, I started solving these question papers. I had only 10 days to complete this exercise and physically I was not 100 percent fit. I used to feel sleepy due to the long train journey and tasty home food after a month or so. In any case, I could not study for more than 8 hrs in a day.

On the last day before the exams, March 14th, a housing society in the neighbourhood screened a popular Hindi movie FREE. I could not resist the temptation to see it. and  went for it at night. To use today’s language, my parents were quite ‘chilled out’ and did not stress me about studies even once.

The exams were for 2 subjects each day and they would start at about 10.30 am and finish by 5.30 pm with a 1 hr break. In the first exam for a language, I actually took a nap (accidentally) as I had become used to afternoon naps.

I performed reasonably well in all subjects and my 6 weeks of adventure prior to the examination did not appear to have too much of an effect on the results. The point I wish to make is that is today’s system creating robots by rote learning instead of creating healthy, well rounded individuals with varied interests? All of this would perhaps have been understandable if, at the end of the conveyor belt, the Engineers (and other professionals) coming out were better today than 40 years back. After close to 30 years of recruiting Engineers at different levels, I very much doubt if that is the case. Which brings me to a corollary perhaps some educationist can better answer: if, at the end of the day, we are not getting better Engineers or other Professionals, are the coaching classes which have mushroomed in every nook and corner of India serving ANY purpose whatsoever in the larger Educational picture?
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P.S.:  Before  readers rush to follow Arun Tengshe’s example, let me mention what he has modestly glossed over. After such ‘eventful’ exams, he was 29th rank holder in the SSC board in Gujarat with 98% marks in PCM.  But the larger question remains---would he have been any better off standing say 5th in the Board if he had missed out on the priceless education his trip to North-East then must have been?  Professionals in the Education domain--and others-- are invited to answer the question Arun Tengshe has raised.

Satish Mutatkar

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4 comments:

  1. I totally share Arun's perspective. My own school in Delhi inculcated in us the culture of modest but regular work, and, we realized that if we did that, there was no pressure later. As a result, by the time our Senior Cambridge exams rolled along in November-December 1966, we felt totally prepared - after all, we had been doing it every day for the past 3 years, though no more than a few minutes or maybe an hour a day. As a result, during the exams, we had a ball. I remember having seen 4 movies during the Senior Cambridge exams (including Shammi Kapoor's "Teesri Manzil"). I deeply appreciate the fact that my school inculcated in us a culture of understanding the subjects and rational, logical thinking rather than the mug-pot culture prevalent today. As our friend Rajen Mata used to say, "If you have already done and mugged up all the Mathe problems in the book from where they are going to be picked, then where is the challenge of the exam?"

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  2. I am from a different generation (passed 10th in 89) and I have to say that your experience is quite unique! My parents gave lot of importance to both the board exams (and rightly so because they did not have money to fund private engineering education). Thankfully, I am came out on the right side and ended up going to COEP and then to IIT.

    If I compare what has changed from 89 to 2012, I see that expectations from students and parents have changed a lot. In our time (23 years from your time), we had a rough idea that we wanted to be say engineer or doctor etc. Today's students have decided that they want to "Bio something? engineering" from a certain university in UK or US and then a MBA at the age of 15. That creates extra pressure and all the running around. I see even schools pushing students into this and rather than focusing on basic education focusing on helping them make a choice.

    I guess the point you are making is, you relied on your inner ability more than training hard and you did all right. If you had specific expectations like today's students or parents, I guess your attitude would have been different or may be you would have enjoyed life like you did and would have done just fine given your intellect!

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  3. I have learned something in past few years having a close look at education system we have in our country. Children do not understand the meaning of what they are learning. They memorize and write the exams. If we really study and understand a subject well than there is no need for the last minute panic studies which memorizing students have to go through.
    In my school days, I was sick for a month during one of my final exams and could barely get well before the exams started off. I was reluctant to write my exams itself as I never thought I could clear it because I had not been through any revisions at all. My teachers and my dad assured me that I had learned well earlier and it will all come back when I see the questions. They were right. My marks came down by just 4% from previous years 97% to 93%. Those were the times when I used to learn well ahead of exams and try to understand what ever I was learning. Sigh! At present I have to pick up those books and start studying pulling myself away from internet.

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