The Importance Of Board Examinations

From the prehistoric era, the Charle’s Darwin theory states “THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTNECE” and “THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST”. From this it is evident that over the ages the mankind exists based upon this theory .In any sphere of life, we have to prove ourselves by demonstrating our individual skills.

Education, as defined by Swami Vivekananda, is the manifestation of the perfection already in man. One of the fundamental goals of education is to impart culture across the generations. Education is not always the education that a person receives in school. The process of education starts as soon as a baby is born and stays life long.

Each and every person faces some or the other hurdle to become successful. Without facing hurdles and challenges success would not have any meaning. Likewise, the board exams act as an initiation for the students and it prepares them for the competitive and challenging world that lies outside their school campus.

Our education system has been designed in such a way that students undergo the board exams twice – once in tenth and once in twelfth. Once the students undergo the tenth board exams they get a glimpse of what the board exams are like and later when they appear for the 12th boards, their pressure and stress is much reduced. Hence the pressure of the students is very well balanced due to the two board exams held.

Board exams are a benchmark for assessing a child’s educational standards. Board exams help students to battle out the most difficult of all exams and tackle tense situations with ease. Education upto the tenth standard is considered to be the basic education which a child receives. Even though he/she is interested in non academic fields such as performing arts or sports, etc. the basic knowledge that they receive uptill 10th makes them aware of their surroundings. The education pattern Is such that it develops the personality of the child so that later on he/she can express their views and ideas regarding any general topic. it prevents them from being ignorant of their own society. The system is absolutely well designed and apt for the all round development of a person. Even a very famous sportsman will know something about history of his country and geography of the world. And that applies to people in all fields.

The boards help in acquainting the students with the little pressure so that they are used to handling pressure and don’t fell bothered about it later in their life.

Besides, evaluation by the school teachers is more of the subjective type whereas evaluation done in the board exams is more of the objective type and hence it results in a better assessment of the student.

Very recently, our human resource development minister Mr. Kapil Sibal, has announced to scrap tenth standard board exams completely. This decision will have serious repercussions as when the students reach the 12th standard, they would suddenly have to face the boards which increase the stress and this adversely affects the career and future of the students. It would definitely not act as a stress buster for the students. Life is full of stress. One can’t just scrap all the stress that comes one’s way. Scraping of 10th Board Exams won't lead to any improvement in the quality of education, instead it will lead only to deterioration because the students will lose the motivation and incentive to study. Scrapping of tenth boards will lead to more no. of non governmental/private institutions coming up offering board exams preparation courses and in course leading to the deterioration of the school level of education. Also, if the boards are scrapped the judgment of student will be depending entirely upon the school. This will lead to improper judgment of the students and will greatly affect the uniformity of the results nation wide. The standardization will be a complete mess.

Nowadays people from all over the world prefer studying in Indian institutions as they feel that Indian pattern of education is probably the best in the world. Thus, the Indian education system is such well designed and planned that Barack obama has asked US students to study like the Indian kids and catch up with them, whereas our Human resource development minister is trying the reverse. If your hand gets injured, you treat it with care and apply medicines and sprays … but you don’t just chop off your hand!!

The board exams makes students look at the harder side of life. They kearn to be more practical and rational in life. They realize that the world outside their campus is not like the one inside their campus. It also inculcates the competitive spirit within the students that is necessary to face the competitive world outside. It gives the students the courage to face the challenges of tomorrow.

Most of the students who write the tenth board exams are just around 15 – 16 years olds. They are in their teenage which is the most unstable stage in a person’s life. Hence, the tenth boards help these teenagers to grow into adults. Thus, the boards in the teenage acts as the gateway to the adulthood of a child.

The concept of the board examinations is marvelous, but, in the present scenario it’s implementation is very much improper. The board exam report cards have 2 to 3 pages giving the academic assessment of a student whereas his co-curricular activities and non academic skills are cramped in to one page. The CBSE must provide more provisions in the subjects such as performing arts, sports, etc. so that a student’s all round development is evaluated and these subjects should have equal importance like maths or science.The recipe is good but the salt is less!!!