Over the holidays, I went to India. Unlike here in the UK, they don’t receive holidays in the winter. Because of this many of my cousins attended school, while I helped them every now and then with their studies.
While helping them, I came across some rather surprising things, particularly the sheer amount of differences it has with our own education system. In order to understand it a bit better, I asked whether my cousin – who prefers to remain unnamed – would be willing to provide an interview for me.
We started off quite simply, just discussing and comparing the education systems the two countries have with each other. Similarly, to how 16-year-old students across the UK sit their GCSEs, in India, they have what is known as board exams. These ‘boards’ are taken in what is known as the 10th STD and 12th STD (like A-Levels). Different boards provide different syllabi, and each school selects one board to teach. The most well-known one is known as the CBSE board.
Unlike in the UK, it is more likely to be held back a year. Within the academic year, Indian students face two major school tests, which determine whether you move on to the next year. These are held half-yearly as well as at the end of the school year. Students must attain a certain mark, not a grade or level, be ranked amongst their peers and then it will be shown whether they are allowed to progress or not.
As our own discussion progressed, we went into the grittier details. Due to a mindset of getting a certain mark in a test, rote memorisation seems to be what students – and even teachers – fall back on. Before a test, rather than making notes or mind-maps, doing practice questions, or even study sessions with friends, Indian students will hide away in their rooms memorising information word for word from a text book, before spewing the exact words from the book into the exam.
Moreover, I also learnt that for certain subjects, like maths, teachers are very set on their methods. While not taking maths as a subject anymore, I still retain quite a bit of information on that subject. When my cousin was having difficulty understanding how to solve certain types of questions with the method her teacher taught her, I tried explaining it in a different manner. Despite her even saying that she preferred my method, and that she understood it better, she told me that her teacher would not accept it if she used it in a test. She told me that she would just not receive any marks for her answer, even if it would be correct.
Alongside this pressure to do everything perfectly, and the way everyone else does it, the pressure for academics are almost greater outside of school as well, my cousin tells me. There seems to be a certain emerging mentality amongst parents to send their children to tuition service after tuition service, what is known there to be ‘coaching’. After returning home from school, it is time for tuition, which can, at times, take up to 5 hours, and for a multitude of subjects. After this, once the student has returned home, they will have to complete their homework from school; this doesn’t even cover the time they spend doing their own independent studying, or any extracurriculars they may take part in.
While high pressure education systems in Asia aren’t exactly unknown, it was still surprising to hear about the reality of the situation.
