In a damning indictment of the public school system in the country, a whopping 70 percent of all students attending community schools failed to make it through the ‘iron gate’ this year. The overall pass percentage, which is a healthy 80 percent for private schools, was pushed down to 41.77 percent owing to the unexpectedly bad results at community schools attended by 76 percent of all SLC examinees this year. [break]
It is the worst result in eight years. Last year, 47.16 percent of the examinees had successfully cleared the exams. The pass percentage is this low despite the five grace marks offered to students who just miss the pass mark. The only admirable aspect about this year’s results is that they probably reflect the most accurate picture of the state of public school education in the country. This year’s exams have been widely acknowledged as the most free and fair in many years, with incidents of cheating and oversight greatly minimized with stricter monitoring. And if that is the case, the truly woeful SLC results should be a wake-up call for our education stakeholders.
Educationists have long decried wasteful spending in school education that has failed to bring any desired changes. Currently, the government spends a yearly sum of nearly Rs 10,000 per public school student. The state’s investment in the nearly 60 percent students who failed this year’s SLC alone comes to an eye-watering 25 billion rupees.
There is no one-single overriding factor that contributes to this sorry state of affairs. But a large share of the blame must go to public school teachers who spend more time attending programs of the political parties they are affiliated with rather than in the classroom, teaching. Repeated poor performance of SLC-appearing students in English, Mathematics and Science suggests the level of instruction is not up to the mark, and the qualification of teachers in these highly technical subjects is a big suspect. Also under scrutiny is the Education Act (1971) which is believed to be grossly out of step with the challenges of 21st century education. The Maoist insurgency that was at its apogee when the students who appeared in this year’s SLC exams were in the middle of their schooling, and which undoubtedly exerted psychological burden on many young minds, has also been blamed.
But most interestingly, SLC Exam Controller Khaga Raj Baral has tried to justify the poor results by saying that some annual variation is natural since the number of ‘studious’ and ‘less well prepared’ students is bound to vary year after year. That argument is a hard-buy. It is extremely unlikely that the country should have the poorest results exactly at the time that the exams have been the fairest. It is more likely that other factors (pointed out by some of our eminent educationists) are at play. Unsubstantiated arguments like Baral’s are dangerous since they could shift the focus away from vital reforms in school education. Rather than trying to defend the indefensible, the effort should be on exploring where the country has gone wrong in educating its young. If such a dismal SLC result does not prompt a serious soul searching, nothing will.
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