Odyssey of school kids

The world of a school-going kid in our country is not the world s/he wants to live in. Now he does not wander around the realm of fairy tales, neither does he feel the warmth of screaming at the top of his lungs during a match of cricket. Instead, he starts his day with a schoolbag too heavy for his little shoulder and ends his day with a haunted phobia of the next-days’ examinations.

Take the case of a 10-year-old nephew of one of my friends, who received a slap from his mother the day before this Eid-ul-Fitr for not completing the syllabus for the class tests (CT) of his upcoming school final examination.

The mother of the fourth grader came down heavily on him following a phone conversation with another guardian. The conversation went like this: “Bhabi (sister-in-law), my son is already done with his course. What about Aman? Deal with him carefully because it will be very tough to achieve GPA-5 in the Primary School Certificate (PSC) examination next year. So, I’m preparing Prottoy (my son) for the public examination from now.”

This is the most common telephone conversation between the guardians who want their children to become a doctor, engineer or pilot. The examination stress ultimately plays no vital role except for snatching the child’s happiness and damaging the young pupils’ mental health. The way the parents are compelled to treat their school-going kids is in a way damaging their self-esteem.

Examination is now a scary thing for hapless Aman as he had to face at least 18 of them including class tests and tutorials for his mid-term before the festival.

Eva, daughter of one of my relatives, had to go through the same ordeal during the last Eid vacations because of her Junior School Certificate (JSC) examinations that began on November 1.

The sight of tears streaming down Aman’s face due to the strong slap reminded me of few lines by Albert Einstein: “I am opposed to examinations - they only deter from the interest in studying. No more than two examinations should be given throughout a student’s (college) career. I would hold seminars, and if the young people are interested and listen, I would give them a diploma.” He said so when he was asked how important examinations were for the education system.

Thanks to our policymakers who have introduced PSC and JSC besides the existing two public exams -- SSC and HSC – which the students must pass before sitting for the university admission tests. Perhaps nowhere else in the world do students need to face so many examinations before starting their undergraduate studies.

Every year, tens of thousands of students are securing A+, the highest grade, in Bangladesh. However, the level of aptitude of these top-graders come to question when we find that only two students out of thousands of GPA-5 achievers qualify to be enrolled in the Dhaka University’s English department for the 2014-15 session.

But the weird competition for securing A+ is sapping all the energies of the kids and limiting their lives between school and home.

Interestingly, when asked where fishes are found, Aman’s younger brother, who is now preparing for Class II school entry test, replied fishes are seen in aquariums and TV cartoons. The six-year-old urban kid came up with the unwanted answer as his parents, who want to see their son become a Buet engineer, cannot manage time to visit their village which is surrounded by rivers, canals, ponds and greenery due to the continuous examinations held at local coaching centres.

I do not know whether this education system can at all make such parents’ dream come true; but when it comes to creating exam-phobia among Aman and Eva, it did worked very well.

The children, who are forced to wake up from bed to join the school assembly at six or seven o’clock with heavy loaded satchel every day, rush to attend the science fair at their own will when a science fair is organised. The reason is purely because they have an excuse to distract from the stringent seasons of education and participate in a lighter and more enjoyable medium of knowledge.

The interesting thing is that the same Aman, who feels sleepy while doing his home work (HW) keeps himself busy preparing for the fair over the night with a smile on his face.

But in lieu of creating a friendly atmosphere for education, we are pushing the fresh minds into traumatic situation where they enter the centres cordoned off by armed cops during the public examinations.

It is reported that Finland is the world’s best-education country where there is no public examination up to 18. But it is an irony of fate that we cannot think of anything except exam-oriented education in our life.

Can we find any way to make education joyful for our children by letting them free from the chain of the examination spree? All of us know what a difficult task it is to mitigate sufferings of the exam-torn children overnight. But we have a dim of hope after the High Court recently issued a rule with an aim to lighten the kids' burden of heavy schoolbags to relieve the school-going children and their parents.

So, let’s wait with a hope of seeing a smile on Aman’s face one day instead of tears.