Opinion Open book exams — a step towards ‘learning without burden’ for students

The Yash Pal committee was set up in response to a moving speech given by the novelist RK Narayan in the Rajya Sabha. He was a nominated member and this was his maiden speech. Its emotional appeal brought tears to the eyes of the then Deputy Speaker, Najma Heptulla. Other members were also moved by Narayan’s description of children’s daily ordeal.

Their heavy school bags and the long hours they spend doing homework and receiving extra tuition have ruined their childhood, Narayan said, labeling the problem as a national madness. The Yash Pal committee attributed this madness to a false conception of knowledge and poor curriculum design. It reflected a “catch up” syndrome based on the popular belief that an explosion of knowledge had occurred in the West, and India had to catch up. Poorly

designed syllabus and textbooks, and unimaginative pedagogy exacerbate the “catch up” syndrome.

On top of these systemic factors, children face the stress of a competitive social ethos. Instead of mitigating it, schools contribute to it by promoting an all-round competitive mentality. Principals are under the pressure of management committees and bureaucrats to show better results. To survive in the system, teachers push children to aim at higher levels of performance. With weekly and monthly tests, a breathless routine destroys the child’s search for meaning in what is taught. They take recourse to cramming — and the exam system also promotes it.

Speakers at the TISS workshop drew upon a recently published volume that examines the question: “Where are we a quarter century after the Yash Pal committee report?” It has been edited by Mythili Ramchand, Ritesh Khunyakari and Arindam Bose. The contributors have looked at the different domains of the school curriculum and the state of teacher education. A few gains made under the auspices of reforms initiated in the school curriculum and in teacher education are noted. However, the Covid years nullified some of these gains, and now the system is facing a whole new set of difficulties. Deletions from textbooks have made them shorter, but harder to comprehend. And the shortage of teachers has become chronic across the country as a recent report published by TISS (‘The Right Teacher for Every Child’) demonstrates on the basis of an extensive survey.

The workshop had a session on technology. Its impact on children and on teachers is largely uncharted territory. It has also witnessed a sharp polarisation among promoters and critics. Three teachers spoke at the workshop about their frustrating experience with the enforced use of technological resources. A counter view was also presented.

Undoubtedly, the burden that the Yash Pal report had discussed is now mutating into a broader subject — of pervasive anxiety among parents, teachers and children. It has to do with the new economic and work environment. With career opportunities dwindling, the pressure to compete for the two old, high-status professions — medicine and engineering — has greatly increased. Commercial coaching takes full advantage of this pressure, and it has raised it to levels hitherto unknown.

The popularity of technology and coaching has increased side by side, feeding the new testing style. It follows a “multiple choice” template. It presents roundabout ways of approaching the same topic, challenging the student, literally, to crack the code to give the right answer. Coaching institutes have cracked this system so satisfactorily that they now proudly invite students to suffer through the prolonged ordeal of dealing with MCQ-based tests shot off like a machine gun. What little scope there was for school teachers to focus on understanding and the pleasure it brings has receded.

Though he died only seven years ago, Yash Pal could hardly have imagined the transformative changes that children’s lives would go through in this period. It started as a strategy to deal with the Covid crisis. Those who thought of using the online alternative to real classrooms developed a sense of smug pride by the time the pandemic passed.

Teachers knew that the online plan had not worked, but they didn’t have much say when it was pushed in the post-pandemic new normal. Indeed, one can’t think of any period when teachers had a say in our system. When they are pushed, they push children, and parents join in. So, the burden that the Yash Pal committee had spoken of has been compounded — by new factors and forces that we don’t recognise anymore.

We need another RK Narayan to say that some strange madness has gripped us. We all want to give a purpose to our children. By the time they pass out, they forget what it means to be interested in something — anything.

It is anybody’s guess whether an open book exam will resolve this deeper problem that the Yash Pal report had pointed out. For him, the goal of good teaching was to create intrinsic motivation. Our failure to create it needs a broader remedy.

The writer is former director, National Council of Educational Research and Training