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 9^th 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 24^{th (}not one year before)^. The board exam was scheduled to star on March 15^th.

I went for a selection camp for state level sports from January 27^th. 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 5^th. 

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 14^th, 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 29^th 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 5^th 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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