Problems with Goa's exam-centric education system By Brian Antao, Ph.D.
Recently The Goa Education board announced that it would publish the answer papers of the top students from the SSC and HSSC exams. Apparently this idea is to provide other students with a model on how the answers to the exam questions should be. There are a number of issues that are being debated around this development, some which include the "Intellectual Property" rights that the students own to their answer papers and royalties due to them as these answer papers are not provided free of charge but are on sale. These issues are of a rather trivial nature. The real problem is that such a move will take education reform in the state in a WRONG direction. As it is in Goa the education system at all levels from the high schools to the Universities is too "exam-centric", with a major final exam used as the main criteria for academic advancement. Walk into a college campus and how many of the student groups are engaged in an intellectual discussion on a course or subject? The real problem with this exam-centric approach is that it promotes a "cramming" culture that produces students to be good "parrots". Such rote memorization techniques were actually used in the early days in the computer research field of Artificial Intelligence and resulted in gross failure as the computer programs failed to behave "intelligently". Cognitive Science is a growing field that deals with the many issues such as memory and learning mechanisms. Our Goan educators should avail themselves of the many leading edge developments in the fields of Cognitive Science and Cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology is not just dealing with children with learning disabilities, but there are other areas in this field that have explored more efficient learning and teaching methods. Then we have the entire field of Pedagogy and pedagogical methods to effectively impart education. Goa's exam-centric education system fails to stimulate a student to truly learn a subject. The education system is also too punishment driven, instead of being motivation driven, where the teachers must strive to motivate a student to do better through positive re-enforcement ways, instead of resorting to punishment. The predominant culture of referring to past exam papers does not even exist in the educational system in the western countries. As the educational system enforces grass roots learning of the fundamentals. It is only in the case of standardized tests such as the SAT, GRE, GMAT that one refers to past question papers. One has to has the profound question, "Is Goa's education system really educating" its students?" the operative word being "to educate". If one looks at the trend that students in Goa follow in their "education", typically a student accumulates past question papers from the last four or five years with ready answers to these questions. Exam preparation takes the form of cramming this set of questions and answers. The exam-setters typically repeat questions from past exams and thus we have students scoring high percentages in the exams. What have the students learnt in the process? Other than being experts in cramming and passing exams. The problem lies with both the system of education as well as the students. Goa's education system largely fails to motivate students to actually "learn" a subject or topic and master it and be an expert at it! There is a vast difference from learning a subject and cramming and passing an exam. We have for example engineering students from Goa colleges graduating with 80% in their final exams yet fail in job interviews and are unable to secure good quality jobs. What does it mean that a student who has secured 80% in his graduating class? One expects the 80% to indicate that the student has mastered at the very least 80% of the engineering curricula knowledge? But in the Goa's education system this 80% is more likely to indicate that the student's cramming index. One of Goa's minister's recently indicated that the "exam system" needs serious reform, yet we see this development of selling exam paper solutions of the top performers. Goa's education minister in a recent statement made another faux pas by stating that the subject of "History" could be done away with. Oh! Wonderful what an agenda do we have for education reform in Goa a minimizing and limiting one, instead of one that broadens the intellect of the youth, that provides more options and freedom in course and subject selections. Developing well roundedness is key to success in the long run. Learning history teaches one NOT to make the mistakes that were made in the past. Learning history also teaches one about the cultures of the world, the civilizations of the past that is quite useful to pave the ways to the future. Learning history also teaches one not to go about re-inventing the wheel! Goa is a modest sized compact state, with a population that is of a generally higher IQ level than the rest of the country, yet why is it that we allow the wrong people to deal with the critical problems of education and governance in the state. We need people at the helm in Goa who have creativity and originality of thinking. This plan of selling answer papers of past top ranking students is going to breed cramsters and copycats. And look what we have now; India's great IIM's are faced with a leak in their recent CAT entrance exam papers. This seems to be just the first of many such leak that has come to the notice of the authorities, with the fierce kind of competition that the IIT's in India face for admission, it is very likely that such leaks have occurred at the JEE as well. Haven't we had many cases of leaks of exam papers at the SSC and HSSC levels in the Goa Board? Education reform in Goa is much needed to develop the student's intellect to think in an original manner. In Goa we have hegemony, with the older generation dominating the youth. Yes it is good to respect one's elders but we have the associated problem of the elders suppressing the youth. One finds in Goa, the attitude of the elders suppressing the free access to knowledge to their wards, in order to forever keep them under their wing. Even birds, feed their yougen's to a certain age and let them loose to develop their lives of their own. Not that this is against family values. But Goa's education has got to grow in to a more open-minded one in culture, with the programs that are offered include a certain degree of freedom of selection of courses or subjects from an early stage. Back to the exam-centric problem, In fact it should be made mandatory for the exam setters NOT to repeat any question that has appeared in a past exam. Yes it involves a lot of work for the exam-setters, and another problem with the exam setters is that they take the lazy way out. An exam setter should ask the question what exactly am I trying to test in this exam that I am preparing to give to the students? Their cramming ability, their understanding of the subject material, their problem solving ability, their creativity. A well-set exam should test a student's abilities in all these areas in the subject in question. Education reform in Goa at all levels has got to move towards a "learning" paradigm where there is much need to eliminate this "exam centric" approach. The learning paradigm is introduced by putting into place a continuous learning and evaluation system. In such a system a student is not evaluated just on the basis on a single final exam, but a serious of differing hurdles that have to be crossed, more akin to a triathlon competition. In a continuous based learning system, the students would be subjected to regular quizzes, homework assignments, class projects, research projects, term papers, a mid-term exam and a short final exam. The final grade in the course or subject being a weighted sum of the performance on all these tasks. This system of continuous learning would also promote students to properly "learn" and master a subject, rather than just concentrate their energies on cramming for the final exam, loading their short-term memories for the big day, which are quickly emptied as soon as the exam is over. This form of continuous learning also exercises the intellect, develops a range of skills such as problem solving, creativity, personality development and foremost independent thought. This form of education reform is not just more work for the students but also more work for the teachers as well. When such a continuous form of learning, teaching and evaluation is introduced and implemented in the high schools, one can do away with the SSC exams. As each high school would have produced its own merit list of scholars, which could be used as a basis for admission to the Higher secondary schools. A similar system would also be used for the higher secondary schools. As a further recommendation, it would be also possible to eliminate the HSSC exam, and instead adopt the World recognized SAT (Standardized Aptitude Test) conducted by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) of Princeton, USA, for the standard XII students. Admissions for the various colleges in Goa would then based on a weighted combination of a student's performance on the SAT and their performance of their localized merit list in each of their individual Higher Secondary Schools. The SAT is administered in India for students who wish to pursue undergraduate studies in the USA, and SAT exam centers could be set up in Goa in collaboration with ETS Princeton to administer the test for students in Goa as well. This test can be taken at different times of the year. (This is roughly the pattern of admission followed in American Universities). Now this would be really reforming education in Goa. Are the Goan educationists up to the challenge, or as usual susegado and full of inertia and Smalltalk with little impetus for change? You know accepting and implementing change can be a challenging psychological problem, particularly in a community that is staid in its ways. __________________________________________________________________ Introducing the New Netscape Internet Service. Only $9.95 a month -- Sign up today at http://isp.netscape.com/register Netscape. Just the Net You Need. ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
