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Why Exams are necessary?

 Most dreadful word for the students and the parents is the word “examination”. Nowadays it is equally dreadful for the teachers. The students are afraid because, it will make or break their future and career. The parent sees their future connected with the future of their children, and the teacher see their expertise being tested through these examinations. A teacher is said to be good if his students get higher grades in Board examination. This creates tension around all stakeholders related to an examinee.

     I being a parent of three children still remember the agony we have gone through when our oldest son reached grade 9 and the other two were to follow him in successive year. To let them succeed with excellent grade, we had to suspend all social engagements like travelling, partying etc.at the same time we limited watching TV shows, mobiles were disconnected, internet connection were no more and  all of these  just to ensure that my son do not lose focus from his study for the exam. This situation continued till all of my kids were not finished their grade 12 board examination and in order to do so it took us five long years. I am sure this is the case with almost every responsible parent these days.

The scenario continues to remain same in the colleges, especially in the professional courses like, engineering, medicine and business. In the college every single week and sometimes twice in a week is exam in different format quiz, assignment, homework, test tutorial internship and projects, and all of these are countable to make grades. The difference between school an colleges is now that here the exams are separated apart on different times and not once in a year but the pressure and tensions are not reduced but increased

      Why is this so? The answer lies in the system of education which is mostly the” examination oriented”. The most suffering communities are Indian and Chinese, and the same situation is ought to prevail wherever the number of colleges and opportunities of jobs are limited and the population is more.

      In the examination oriented system the whole career of a student depends on what he is able to write during the short duration of an examination. If he suddenly become sick or he is unlucky enough to get a tough question paper, he fails his future is ruined. Examiners go by just what is written in the answer papers and do not take into consideration students all round development in this system of education. Examination oriented system kill student’s genuine interest in study and give importance only to cramming. It does not, in any way, reflect the real merit of the student. Examination thus becomes mere game of chance and guessing.

    It seems thus that the examination has become a necessary evil, but if there were no examinations, it is likely that the majority of students would not bother to study at all. We would never be able to separate the brilliant students from the average ones.

Relevance of examination:-

In the present century and the centuries to come, life is becoming so complex that examination has come to play an important role in one’s educational career. It is said that child is the father of nation. Today’s child may be the leader of tomorrow. Every country must have mechanism start from school to select good student to become a leader in every walk of life of the country. So who will be that leader is a question. For this reason a selection criteria is needed which ends up in the form of an examination and it must exists in order to do what we want to do. Govt. sponsored and private sector agencies to offer jobs , chooses students with this view in their mind and set up criteria of selection to suit their requirement which is again in the form of an exam. So to fit in the life after school and colleges it is also required to have the ability to cope with pressure and succeed in the examination conducted by those agencies to choose the smart, hardworking and intelligent students.

Through the examinations students develop the ability to express his thought and that to in a manner that other can understand it. Examinations also reflect that student has acquired a certain amount of knowledge in some branches of study. Besides, the mind of the students, even if he is dull, receives good exercise when he prepare for examination. A student’s success in an examination, therefor, helps employers and others to assess his mental or general ability.

Examinations teaches also a lot of things and give training to various things like punctuality, writing skills timing sense and above all expressing their thoughts and opinions. Without Examination it is very hard to find out the real knowledge of individual students as well as student will lose their motivation with their studies. With this examination method, student will get fear about their exams and study their lesson properly to increase their knowledge as well as getting highest marks in their class.

Conclusion:

Despite the evil nature of the examinations we are bound to go along with them. This is because we have not hitherto evolved any effective alternatives to them. However, the tests and evaluation system be so designed that they make a real test of a student’s mental ability, originality and faculty of critical thinking.

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