There is a hue and cry this year also, because more than 90% students have passed the SSLC. As a matter of fact, I don't see why any student should fail in the school examination. I have had an opportunity to view the presentation of about a hundred schools as part of the Harita Vidyalayam Television program. We visited about 12 schools ourselves. We were greatly impressed by the tremendous variety and depth of the activities going on in our schools. In addition to the heavy syllabus, all kinds of clubs are in operation, such as Agriculture Club, Science Club, Social Science Club, Literature Club, Drama Club, Mathematics Club, Eco Club, Quiz Club and so on.
The students get involved in various social service activities also. In addition there are study tours to various historical and cultural sites. On the whole, the students get exposed to the current society and its problems in a creative way and also initiate activities which enable them to become part of the solutions in their own humble way. Who can say that our schools do not enable them to become good citizens of tomorrow? Of course, the SSLC Book has a certificate saying "eligible for higher studies" imprinted on it. This marks the event of passing the examination. But how is it that the sole purpose of school education is to enable all of them to go for higher education?
School education is meant for everybody, and the society needs all these children - even those who cannot meet the NCERT standards in Maths or Science. They also contribute to the growth and well being of the society and also to making our life rich and meaningful. Why should we fail them in SSLC saying they are not good enough in Maths or Science or English? If a student has very good talents in music, why should we deny him / her the opportunity for higher studies in music, just because he/ she is not good enough in Maths? Naturally, if somebody wants to become an engineer, he / she should do well in Maths and Physics.
Similarly, one who wants to take up medicine should do well in biology and chemistry. But why should we brand everybody with the same scale and declare pass or fail? The purpose of school examination should not be to brand everybody as good, medium or bad. It is merely to reveal what are the strengths and weaknesses of each youngster and to give indications about where they can specialise. But, somehow, people feel that an examination where few fail is not of a high standard. And they talk about the good old days when SSLC was held in high esteem. But, pray, what was the high standard of the then SSLC exam?
Out of hundred children who entered Class I, hardly fifty got to Class X. And about 60% failed in the SSLC exam. That means only about 20 per cent of the youngsters managed to pass SSLC. And what happens to them? What do they get from school, except for a certificate which says they are good for nothing? Is that the purpose of schooling? I beg to disagree.
KITE site records 2.13 crore hits
The results portal of Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education www.results.itschool.gov.in witnessed a whopping 2.13 crore 'hits' when the SSLC results were declared on May 3. A total of 15 lakh people visited the site that day. As many as 81 per cent users browsed the results through mobile devices, while 16 per cent used laptops and desktops and two percent the tablet.
Android was the favourite operating system for browsing (80 percent) while 13 per cent browsed through Windows operating system. A total of 94.90 percent users were from India and 4.5 percent from the Gulf Countries. In that, the UAE topped with 2 per cent.
Chrome browsers topped with 54 percent, while Android Webview came second with 13.6 percent and UC browser third with 12.5 percent. Firefox browser was used by four percent. The once-favourite 'Internet Explorer' browser could not even record 0.5 percent users. Mr K. Anvar Sadath, vice-chairman and executive director, KITE, told Deccan Chronicle that they had also made available the results through their 'SAPHALAM 2018' mobile app, which was downloaded by over 50,000 users from Google Playstore. The app came second in the trendings in education sector in the early hours of the result declaration.
The results were hosted on the Cloud in the form of text for easy viewing and access, which resulted in a response time of less than two seconds for the portal. It was hugely appreciated by the user community. "We would make available the higher secondary results also on the same portal and mobile app and a new mobile view mechanism would also be enabled in the portal for easy viewing on mobile devices," said Mr Sadath. Apart from individual results, the website and the mobile app contained analysis of results at school, educational district, and revenue district levels, info-graphics, subject-based analysis and study reports.
(Author is an eminent educationalist)
