The 10th Class results were recently declared and a substantial number of students scored 500 out of 500. Then 12th Class results followed and the trend persisted. We must admit that it is a rare feat. Everyone celebrated. Social media was inundated with congratulatory messages. We must also hail the students. After all, it is not a joke to secure a perfect score, especially in language and literature subjects. However, a million-dollar question arises here: Are we manufacturing marks-minting machines? Is the perfect score logically imperfect?
Let us admit that getting a perfect score in all subjects is no measure of command over the subject. The subject matter keeps developing and it is impossible to keep up. But the perfect score system creates a false impression of achievement. Every student wants to get the perfect score by hook or crook. Here all the purposes of qualitative education are defeated. We sell distorted excellence under the garb of a perfect score. The achievement is celebrated with fake glamour. It reduces our budding intellectuals to marks-minting robots. The marks take the front seat and the quality of education the back seat. The theory of a perfect score impresses itself in the minds of young students and shapes their ambitions. Creative ideas cannot be channeled into numerical scores. Education needs to be for the holistic development of the child, but the students are increasingly transforming into victims of an unrealistic, pointless, and mindless rat race. The rote learning system is ruining their creativity and originality, year by year. Students are learning in an environment where marks define ingenuity. They are trapped in a bandwagon. Securing more marks is the only driving force.
The story of marks does not end there. Once the results are declared, comparisons start. One is inferior or superior depending on the marks secured. No doubt students are performing great, but is the content of their education as great? A good education should equip students with knowledge, skills, values, and mindsets to be responsible citizens and agents of change. That is the secret of success. We must manufacture creative minds. Quality should matter more than quantity.

The writer has a PG degree in Mass Communication and Journalism. [email protected]

Fida Hussain Sodagar