Marks or knowledge : What is your choice ?

Shivani Sharma *

20th Annual Prize Distribution Function of the Council of Higher Secondary Education, Manipur in May 2013 :: pix - Deepak Oinam

Today the world has become very competitive. Competition is everywhere. It is in studies, sports, job and almost all activities of mankind. But, is competition really giving benefit in the field of education? Let us think about it for a while.

Educational competition is everywhere and is growing day by day. Friends compete each other for better marks. Different Schools compete with each other for better result in Board Examinations. Nowadays, we are focusing very much on more marks and good grades. Frankly speaking I am not an exception to it. And how can I be ?

If I start neglecting marks, I won't get admission in good colleges. Nowadays it is not odd for a college to set its cut off marks very high.

But does high marks ensure that a student have got good knowledge ? Here lies my question and it was in my brain for the last two three days. There are many factors which can lead to high marks without good knowledge.

The hot problem faced by education system today is that students study by memorizing instead of knowing its meaning clearly. In some cases, there is a practice of liberal marking.

Due to which students get more marks then she deserves. In order to get high marks, a student may also use some unfair means; who knows ? Even a student has secured high marks, by clearly knowing everything written in books, it may not be enough. The second question lies in the implementation of her knowledge.

What if the student uses her knowledge only during the examination ? She may answer every question correctly and perfectly and may even score cent percent in the examination.

What if she doesn't implement any of her knowledge in day to day life ? She may not be active in co-curricular activities. She may not be smart enough.

What I want convey is that; marks alone won't show the ability and talent of a student. Even a student with relatively low marks can be more talented.

Over-competition may also prove to be evil. It may ruin the real meaning of education. Nowadays we can see some students committing suicide even after scoring good marks especially in Board Exam of Cl X & Cl XII. We can also see some teachers (not all) teaching students from the examination point of view and not for real knowledge.

Now coming back to the question of (very) high Cut-Offs marks for admission I would like to say that it needs a little modification. We should conduct entrance test, instead of believing blindly in the marks.

There should be an average cut off mark for the eligibility to appear the entrance test. And most important is that co-curricular activities of students should be considered. This will show how active the student is.

So let us learn the joy of learning. Every subject has its own charm and beauty. Let us try to learn lesson in the best way and apply it to our daily life. If we learn the lesson this way then it will be sure that we will pass the examinations with flying colors as marks will be behind us.

Thus it won't be good to set marks as the main objective and leaving knowledge behind. Instead of this; let us aim for knowledge.