Exams are friendly, when you address it in your tongue

Dave, who has done his doctorate on innovative question papers, says tribal students under-perform in examinations for no fault of theirs. “They are left far behind relatively richer non-tribal students during examinations. It’s not just because their language differs from Gujarati, but also because they’re very poor.” They cannot afford tutions or buy costly teaching aides. “And since tribal students are mostly first generation learners, an educational atmosphere is absent in their households. They find it doubly difficult to attempt descriptive questions,” Dave explained.

All this changes in the new format, which has been gradually introduced to the students. “We distributed the format of the new question papers four months before the examinations were held, in April this year,” said Dave. “The idea was to gradually acquaint students with the new system.”

The examination papers comprise objective type, essay type and a mix of both the objective and essay type papers. “But even in the essay type papers, students had been asked to write answers of not more than nine lines,” he said.

As many as 53,000 class VIII students from all over Surat district attempted the objective type papers this year. “The option is also open to non-tribal students so that tribal students don’t feel singled out,” Dave said.

So far, the experiments were confined only to science, mathematics and Gujarati. If it clicks, the experiment will be extended to other subjects as well. And the department may just change the medium of instruction and syllabus to suit tribal students. “There are choices everywhere, in garment showrooms and kirana stores, but not in the classroom,” pointed out Dave. “We want to evaluate the child the way he wants to be evaluated, and we want to teach each child in the classroom the way he wants to be taught.”