THE HINDU Editorial Vocabulary-December 24, 2016- Topic 1
The excellence of a school education system must
be assessed by the creative individuals it produces. That principle can be the
only meaningful guide for the Central Board of Secondary Education, as it once
again tweaks its testing system to make the Class X Board examination compulsory for all students from 2018.
It is wrong to believe that students in the CBSE system are not being assessed
with sufficient rigour: the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE)
method that it follows is aimed at identifying learning difficulties
periodically and instituting remedial measures, rather than raising stress with
a make-or-break public examination at the secondary level. This philosophy
helps students master various topics and discover their aptitude in the course
of a year, eliminating the chances of a single rote-learning test that could
produce an aberrant result. The gains of such a system should not be thrown
away in the quest to bring about ‘uniformity’ in the Class X education pattern
across the country. If anything, it is learning outcomes and creative
brilliance assessed through non-ritualistic aptitude tests that should rate the
capacity of an educational board. Such an approach would also encourage
teachers to innovate conceptually, rather than drill students to face an
examination.
The argument in favour of a compulsory Class X
Board examination made by Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash
Javadekar is that its absence discriminates against candidates of State boards.
In fact, the Minister announced his intent of returning to a compulsory Board
examination well before the CBSE governing body formally announced it. The
logic, however, is flawed. Uniformity militates against creative educational
methods, and a test that is no more than a straitjacket crushes the initiative
of teacher and student. The CBSE would, therefore, do well to avoid
homogenisation, and retain sufficient scope for true learning. This can be done
by giving the CCE system — which the Board calls a balance between incessant
tests and a single annual assessment — equal weightage, even if all students
take a Board examination for Class X. As the CBSE puts it, over-dependence on a
single examination deprives the learner of motivation and opportunities for
reflection on his or her work. It also does not find favour with the National Curriculum
Framework 2005 that emphasised greater flexibility for teachers to decide on
how to train students in concepts and help them learn at their own pace. What
India needs is a school-level assessment method to identify actual learning
that would remove barriers to students freely migrating across State boards.
Vocabulary
Assessed: evaluate or estimate the nature, ability, or quality of.
Example: The committee must
assess the relative importance of the issues
Synonyms: evaluate, judge, gauge, rate, estimate, appraise, consider
Tweak: a fine adjustment to a mechanism or system.
Example: Here there is
little or no help, but a small tweak to the taxation system could make an enormous
difference to stay-at-home mothers.
Synonyms: adjustment, modification, alteration, change, refinement
Rigour: the quality of being extremely thorough, exhaustive, or accurate.
Example: His analysis is
lacking in rigor
Synonyms: meticulousness, thoroughness, carefulness, diligence
Aberrant: departing from an accepted standard.
Example: Indeed, it was
aberrant of him to accept the job and downright silly of the government to
appoint him.
Synonyms: deviant, deviating, divergent, abnormal, atypical, anomalous, irregular
Brilliance: intense brightness of light.
Example: The nights were
dark, lit only by the brilliance of Aegean stars
Intent: resolved or determined to do (something).
Example: The administration
was intent on achieving greater efficiency
Synonyms: bent on, set
on, insistent on, hell-bent on, committed to
Straitjacket: a strong garment with long sleeves that can be tied together to confine the
arms of a violent prisoner or mental patient.
Example: And we were taken
to be strapped together in an all-in-one straitjacket
Incessant: something regarded as unpleasant continuing without pause or interruption.
Example: The incessant beat
of the music
Synonyms: ceaseless, unceasing, constant, continual, unabating, interminable