Mr. Kapil Sibal’s announcement that the 10th Board exams are to be made optional is a welcome measure and comes not a day too soon. When translated into practice, it should be a panacea for a problem that has long been causing thousands of children undue anxiety and even resulting ultimately in loss of life of many through suicide.

When it comes into force next year, as mentioned in the press, it should also pave the wave for a new system of education and learning that does not unnecessarily burden young minds with achieving a certain number of marks or percentage at the cost of their health and even life. Unfortunately, we have an unwieldy syllabus with a plethora of nonessential information for young minds, which are impossible to digest at that age.

So the children are force-fed with all kinds of useless bits of so-called information, which they cannot comprehend but find vital to “mug up” and reproduce on an examination sheet. Some who are quick at learning by heart fare well in these exams, but those who cannot are at a distinct disadvantage.

Knowledge should be acquired through understanding and must be reproduced in one’s own words using good language skills to express what has been learnt and understood. In the Indian system of education there is very little room for original thinking, leaving the vast number of students including the “toppers” with no real knowledge on matters that need to be studied and imbibed at school.

Our educationists, professors, and academicians, who have created a gargantuan syllabus which is totally outmoded, must take all the blame they deserve for making learning a “fearful, anxiety-ridden exercise and not a pleasurable experience.

Ideally learning, and the consequent joys of imbibing genuine knowledge that is not only useful but is comprehensible to young minds, should not just remain within the four walls of the classroom. It should be a “real-life” experience where children can “see” the printed word in the real world of flora and fauna, in the marvels of everyday science and in Nature from where all forms of life emanate.

Mr. Sibal’s first move is an excellent one, but I do hope he will extend this option to the 12 th Board exams too. I would go further to suggest that the exam system should be totally abolished at the high school level and children should be graded throughout their school life on their respective proficiencies. Children should not be judged by the marks they get but how much of general knowledge and basic information they have gained at the end of their school life. The knowledge that they gain should be the beginning of a genuine quest for jobs and careers that suit their individual aptitudes, proclivities, interests and natural flair.