Exams: A Sham

 I think every person reading this post would unanimously agree that being a student was the best part of our lives. Oh! What fun we had, I hear people reminiscing. They describe every single detail of the most memorable moments of their cherished school days ; from secretly eating food in the most boring class before lunch to sneaking out and bunking classes back to back , they had done it all.

But in all these years, not once have I heard from them about the five letter often used as a short form for a time that we regard as the most dreadful thing every single student has to go through: exams. How do they not remember those days of gloom, when the nerds were busy studying, the teachers reminding us after every single "good morning " the exact number of days left for the exams with an attempt to disguise it unprofessionally while asking whether we had started studying, or the countless late nights we stayed awake studying ? 

Or memorizing would be the right word I guess.

For me the whole point of using exams as a tool to compare students is questionable. In most exams, it is just a matter of how good your memory is and how much you can remember. How can a student possibly be branded upon his/her memory that he/she was born with ?

One might say that nowadays the system is changing and is trying to focus more on application based questions, and that is indeed inevitably true. With the competency based questions being increasingly included in the curriculum and the much promising NEP 2020 coming into its full effect in a couple of years, there is a lot of reform anticipated within this aspect of the education system . However , the actual effect of these much awaited reforms forever depend on their practical implications which, in Jeffrey Archer's words , only time will tell.

So what do you think about this post ? Fell free to leave a comment below 'cause I'd love to know what you guys think !