He's scored a 100! Once associated with cricketers scoring a century, this jubilation is now heard rather frequently between the months of April and May when Board exam results are declared.
For the last decade or so, racking up 100 in sundry papers is no big deal. I’m not talking about science and math here. Today students of Humanities are not too far behind in the rat race. Full marks in Sociology; 100 out of 100 in English! How is that even possible?
This time of year, Facebook walls are plastered with congratulatory messages as beaming parents of 100-percenters wax eloquent about their child's achievements. Some even wave the evidence in the face of every doubting Thomas: a photo of the marksheet, no less.
But where do all these marksheets lead? Not jobs, surely, going by the number of unemployed youth in the country as of February 2018: a whopping 31 million. Now read that against the number of jobs created: 600,000.
So what exactly is the message that we are sending out to these kids? And what is it that they are learning? While some social science books advise couples "to adopt a male child to add meaning to their lives", a national textbook tells 11-year-olds that people who eat meat "easily cheat, tell lies, forget promises, are dishonest and tell bad words, steal, fight and turn to violence and commit sex crimes". A textbook for 15-year-olds in Chhattisgarh states that unemployment levels started rising post independence because women began working. Last I checked we were in the twenty-first century, poised to become the citizens of a superpower. Did the guys who’re prescribing these “textbooks” not get the memo?
I understand that it's a parent’s responsibility to encourage their wards and praise their achievements, and I don't mean to burst the bubble that they've built around themselves (or maybe I do), but is such education something to be proud of? If this is what the curriculum consists of, then is it time to say, We don't need no education?
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