Don't detain children in Class X, but make Class XII exam a carefully planned one: Surendra Laxminarayan Rao

Interveiw with former director-general of National Council of Applied Economic Research

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), which had scrapped Class X board exams six years ago with the intention of reducing pressure on students, is likely to bring these exams back. The Central Advisory Board of Education will take the decision on October 25. Surendra Laxminarayan Rao, who has been part of a number of institutes of academic excellence and is also former director-general of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, speaks to Nikita Puri about the issue. Edited excerpts:

Do we need exams and how do we address the issue of pressure on children?

Pressure is a good thing because you are making the child work hard and be ambitious. Of course, you also need to let them go out and play, and most parents will do that. These children are growing up in a very competitive world; they have to learn how to handle pressure.

Even though exams can be tough on children, we do need an examination system, but it should be corruption-free and well-managed. Ours isn't that way and the recent case in Bihar, of the topper having someone else write her exams, is an example of that.

What concerns you about India's current system?

We are headed towards a demographic disaster, if not a demographic nightmare, because at every step, from school right up to research, our quality has deteriorated. We don't have faculty and we don't build faculty. Countries that had looked up to our education system are now looking down. Britain, for example, used to be the place for Indian doctors. Now it is extremely choosy about which college you come from because the Indian medical education system has gone down the drain.

The kind of faculty and infrastructure we have is terrible. We don't compare at all with a country like China, which has put in an enormous amount of effort in getting good PhD degrees and having the best of the universities coming in to set up there.

A criticism of the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation system that came in place of board exams is that teachers are expected to make daily remarks about each student's development in academics, activities and behaviour. But has this system failed us because the student-teacher ratio makes it hard to give students individual attention?

Daily evaluation is rubbish. A teacher can make notes but he doesn't need to evaluate every day. He needs to evaluate periodically. You need evaluations and exams to see and show students how they are faring, but they shouldn't be used for failing.

Teachers have the responsibility of pulling the child up and in a class of 60 students, they need to keep looking for the six or seven children who need special attention. The student-teacher ratio is a problem, but it's not something that can be resolved overnight. First of all, you need enough teachers. When you have enough teachers, then you start looking at teacher-student ratios.

The no-detention policy is also up for discussion. It applies to students up to Class X and the new one is likely to take into account students till Class V only. Is this a good move?

I don't see why this is necessary. Exams are a burden and they are scary. So long as the child is reasonably literate, let the child go up. When we talk about pressure, this is pressure: having to pass every class.

Don't detain children even when they are in Class X, but make your Class XII exam a very carefully planned one to ensure that anybody who's not qualified won't pass. This way, they can at least say in their applications that they've gone up till Class XII, and they should be given opportunities to take these tests again and pass.

If the child doesn't perform well, talk to him and his parents, but throw the book at the teacher. We are not demanding enough of our teachers because it's the teacher's job to see that the child reaches a certain level. It is the responsibility of the teachers to ensure that every child who comes to them is literate, articulate, numerical and is able to think and analyse: that's what teaching is all about. Moreover, you should evaluate the school by its Class X results and pull it up too.