Best of bad lot

Both your cover story and editor’s letter (EW June) made compulsive reading. The latter because it lays bare the dismal state of Indian education in light of international standing and the former as the ubiquitous, all too familiar, resigned acceptance of an examination board that is the ‘best’, in a quagmire of mediocre, often substandard education boards. It felt akin to reading about an Indian soccer ‘star’ reviewing strategy and tactics totally ignoring the hard fact that we stand #163 in FIFA (Federation of International Football Associations) rankings. Furthermore, it’s ironic that despite the fact that the National Achievement Survey 2015 has in effect declared the CISCE board the ‘best’ in India, there remains, as voiced by chief executive and secretary, Gerry Arathoon himself, a deep insecurity about the exodus of CISCE students to CBSE schools for higher secondary education. CISCE has announced that it will now follow the CBSE curriculum and examination pattern for science and mathematics. This exodus and ‘modification’ of CISCE’s syllabus/question pattern is a result of the misconception that the CBSE syllabus is more ‘conducive’ for candidates who aspire to succeed in the IIT-JEE (joint entrance examination). But nothing can burst the all-pervading academic Indian bubble of delusion that dismisses global rankings, or is just blinded by plain old ignorance. Robindra Subba Director, The Himali Boarding School, Darjeeling World of difference EducationWorld (June) has created history again by ranking India’s 33 school examination boards by interpreting data from NCERT’s National Achievement Survey 2015. I’m not at all surprised CISCE is ranked the country’s #1 examinations board. My own children followed the CISCE syllabus in school and as an English teacher in Mar Thoma College, Tiruvalla, Kerala for three decades I can easily tell the difference between students from CISCE and other schools. Prof. Bejoy Varughese Principal, Mar Thoma Residential School, Tiruvalla, Kerala Teacher training need Your cover story on NCERT’s National Achievement Survey 2015 (EW June) exposes the dark side of India’s school education system. It’s a disgrace that the average national score of class X students in standardised objective tests was below pass mark — less than 50 percent. It shows that students are completely unprepared to answer questions which test their problem-solving and cognitive skills. Unfortunately, their training in schools has equipped them with mere capability to reproduce memorised answers. Though you have rightly emphasised the urgent need to reform the syllabus formulation system to promote HOTS (higher order thinking skills) of students, this won’t be possible unless considerable investment is made in teacher training and development. The world’s best syllabus will yield negligible results unless it’s delivered creatively and efficiently by well-trained teachers. I hope Union HRD minister Smriti Irani has taken note of the NAS results, and that the imminent New Education Policy will give sufficient importance to syllabus commonality across the country’s 33 exam boards. Chiranjeevi Srivastava Delhi Grades inflation exposed The results of the National Achievement Survey 2015 (EW June) are a marked contrast to the unbelievably high scores recorded…