In lieu of the increasing suicides among students, mounting presure to perform in exams & a society obsessed with exam percentages, the new grading system in the CBSE class 10 exams is definitely a welcome move. The new system completely does away with the final exam replacing it with regular & comprehensive internal assesments & extra-curricular assesments through interviews, quizzes, sports & testing life skills. Such a grading system will not only aid actual overall mental development but also strengthen the long standing argument by intellectuals that a high percentage is not a true determinant of a pupil's intelligence - and since its also widely held that exam toppers just 'mug up' & low scorers are branded less intelligent (which is true to some extent). There is no doubt that such a step will help reforming the education system but one also needs to understand the current unfeasibility and several ancillary issues overlooked by the government. For one, the new grading system requires a complete overhaul of the existing examination pattern meaning new teaching aids, textbooks, better infrastructure for the 2-3 thousand odd CBSE schools and most importantly, teacher training and parent sensitisation programmes. Secondly, CBSE board students constitute a very miniscule proportion of the Indian student population since there are a multiplicity of various other state boards & municipal schools. The question then arises of the status of the students of these boards. It would be unfair to leave out these students from the ambit of such a progressive reform. I know that bringing all the boards under this new change, in one go, & with only the Center at the helm is foolishly impractical. But a well thought out plan with Center-State synergy, better implementation, after assessing the success on CBSE board in the near future is certainly possible. It can therefore be obviously concluded from the above that the UPA II's new slew of reforms are ill-researched, self-contradictory & characterised by a neo-liberal tone by geuinely lacking the social sector reforms element. The latter can be proved by a cursory glance at Budget - 2009 & the primary education system. All of us are aware of the abysmal state of government & municipal run primary schools in the country. Despite this knowledge & the right to education being recognised, increase in budgetary allocation for elementary education is less than Rs. 200 Crore. Budgetary allocations for flagship schemes such as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) have plummeted after 2007. Allocation for the SSA in 2007-08 (Revised Estimates) was Rs. 12, 020 Crore, fell to Rs. 11,940 Crore in 2008-09 (Revised Estimates) and further down to Rs. 11,934 Crore in 2009-10 (Interim Budget Estimates). Further, the States' contribution to SSA was increased without necessary increases in devolution to states. And the most contentious issue, in my opinion, is PM Manmohan Singh's decision to set up new IIM's and IIT's, to the tune of lakhs of crores, when the same can be allocated for primary education. It is therefore why many call UPA II's 2009-10 budget self-contradictory with its own goal of attaining social sector reforms.
However, one very genuinely thoughtful measure is the HRD minster's plan of having a uniform science & math syllabus for all boards. Apart from ending disparity in knowledge of the aforementioned subjects among students of various states, it will also help prepare better for several national level competitive exams (which have dedicated sections on pure sciences and mathematics).
