Are we testing them or are we wasting them?
Today, as i was invigilating for the III Physics students(Denver's batch) among others in the Exams Hall, I was witness to students simply pondering or were they wondering over their question paper...
A few were convinced... and a large many were confused...
adding to the agony, a guy from II Physics Juda rang me up, and asked, "Sir, where are u"
I said, "I'm invigilating"
He said, "sir, i need a BIG favour from you. Could you please tell me the stories for LEVEL I part II English. Cos, this afternoon i'm writing that paper, and i dont know anything...
If you just tell me the stories, i can write it perfectly well..."
This set my mind wondering or rather wandering into the whole system of today's examinations... in colleges and universities...
Cos, come October/April, and once again our students are exposed to the ‘inhospitable&rsquo ; region of examinations. What crime did they commit to deserve this punishment?
Did they commit a crime so heinous that six to eight prying invigilators, always suspicious, keep a close guard on their movements inside the examinations hall, see to it that they don’t even borrow a pen, and check with Immigration counter discipline, if the candidate has brought his hall ticket, ID card and all the paraphernalia.
What exactly do we mean by examining them? Do we merit the term examination? What exactly is being examined? Some stale stuff from some stupid text book is digested and vomited…. Come on man, my computer is very good at it… (GIGO)
So why do u want students suffer? Why not make his computer suffer instead?
Why does a student have to memorise hundreds of pages when his computer can do it in microseconds on his behalf.
It sounds absurd, strange, illogical, preposterous, irrational etc etc etc etc etc etc etc….
Napoleon once said, You can take a horse to water, but not make it drink…
You can take a student to college, but not make him think….
Or do we?
If so, I’m the first person to shout for examinations…
Or, mind you, "to hell with exams..."