In our state of Kerala, the SSLC exam has begun and with that has begun the ten day ordeal for the students who are writing this exams and related anguish for their parents. These are difficult days not only for the students and their parents, but also for the Government, with the home department and the policemen at their toes, getting ready for any urgent “actions”. On seeing the big security arrangements for the examination, one can’t help but wonder why this much fuss should be made about the SSLC exams.
In Kerala, no other annual routine practice gets the sort of hype that the SSLC exams get, and in this regard even the annual state financial budget takes a back stage. The SSLC exam is one such thing that when we experience it, make us feel that we are engaging ourselves into something colossal, though when we look back at it, after some years of matured wisdom, understand that it was just another ordinary passage of days, which we were made to think otherwise by our environment. Yet, generations after generations of young fifteen year olds are systematically fed with the stupid idea that SSLC is the chief decider of their future and the marks that they get in it would decide whether their life is destined to be a triumph or a fiasco. But this idea has nothing veracious about it and to the contrary, is a big absurdity, with no empirical evidence to support or any pragmatic proof to sustain. The marks you get in SSLC neither has a bearing on the success of your life nor can influence the different attributes of your future life – career growth, money, life expectancy, permanent personal disposition or the most important one, your family life.
One can’t blame the students if they get overawed by the mythical-like legend of SSLC as they are constantly pestered with grotesque advices and repulsive facts on the exam by teachers and parents alike. But inarguably, the ultimate fact about this exam is that it is another classic example of making a mountain out of a mole hill, where this exam is nothing but a needless propaganda that would only bring sleepless nights to the examinees, payless leave from work for the mothers of the examinees (if lucky, you’ll be able to take paid leaves) and restless two weeks for the fathers of the examinees. (sometimes more than two weeks, depending on the emotional makeup of each father)
It would be quite sensible for me to use this occasion to thank my parents for not being so demanding when I wrote my SSLC exams, unlike lot of other parents. But I must admit that I was also not completely shielded from the mental agonies of the exam, where for a short period of time I was also a bit dejected about not getting the marks that I expected to receive. However, luckily that was for a very short period of time and I was able to emerge out of it quite easily with the due support of my family and now thinks about it and feels rather embarrassed for squandering some quality time lamenting, which could have been effectively used for some gleeful recreation.
When we hear about the robust security arrangements put in place for the exams and the creation of a group of people, what they call as “squads”, to check if there are some malpractices happening during the exams, the only emotion that comes in mind is scorn. It is quite ridiculous that we are giving such unwanted and disgraceful importance to an exam, written by small children who are relatively oblivious of the wretchedness of this world. The reference of squads make me reminisce how eagerly I waited to see them, during my SSLC exam days, just to understand what is so special and newsworthy about them, only to find that they are a group of people who meanders here and there inside the examination hall with an assumption that there are some veiled felons in the hall and it is incumbent upon them and is their ultimate responsibility to catch them red- handed, so that they can be ‘proud’ of themselves to have imparted some ‘much needed sacredness’ into the education system of the state.
It is high time for all responsible parents and teachers to understand themselves and then make students recognize that the SSLC exam is not a perilous monster and it is not something that has got any decisive criticality on the future life of a person as he/she is going to get a wide array of opportunities later in the life to make a mark of his/her own. But even a die hard optimist can hardly foresee such a thing happening in the near future, as we are living in a society obsessed with the narrow and objective result-oriented definitions of success. Hopefully such a remarkable common sense would prevail sometime in the future. For the time being we can wish all those children who are writing the exams this year, an all the very best.
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