On Sunday, the 16th September (2007), I was engaged to an examination in our school. It was the written test for recruitment of Supervisors in the Social Welfare Dept. As an Supervising Invigilator I got the chance to enter and inspect all the rooms where more than 400 students were allotted in the centre.

The questions mainly included General Knowledge, Simple Arithmetic and English Grammar. The pattern of question were multiple choice and very short answer type. The answer must be written in the space provided in the question paper itself just below each question.

The questions were easy compared to the essential qualification of the candidates as only graduate degree holders were allowed to sit in the written test. But on that day, very few candidates had got their faces live and animated while they were answering the questions. Most of the candidates took long time in making a choice with a tick mark.

Some tried to get help from fellow candidates by rubbing their elbows.

Even such easy question which ought to be in the lips of every educated youths of Manipur like ‘When was Manipur merged in India? and ‘what is the emblem of Manipur?’, most of the candidates were at a loss to pick up the right answer. This has led me to think that there is a gap between the degree awarded to our students and their standard of qualification or merit in relation to the level of certificate they posses after coming out from schools and colleges.

There may be many factors which make our students clumsy in appearing in job recruitment tests and competitive examinations. Most of the students fail to bring out their level of sharpness from their brain about any matter in a subject and quick adaptation to the situation with a presence of mind when it requires most.

Here it requires creativity in the thought process of the students which requires vast and exhaustive reading in their learning period of school and college days. But the question here is whether the prescribed syllabus in schools and colleges give ample opportunity to draw out the creativity in the students’ mind and a subjectivity to their subject. And the second question here is the pattern of questions that is set in our schools. Does it really test the talent of the students?

In Japan, China and now even in many East Asian countries, due importance is given to impart exhaustive knowledge to the students through exhaustive teaching. To them degrees and certificates do not matter while application comes to real life situations. Practical application of the knowledge for the benefit of the society by the students is the most important aim of education.

But, on the contrary, here in our side of the globe much emphasis is given on theoretical aspect of learning and the percentage of marks in the examination is counted mostly neglecting the practical utility of the knowledge gained through the creative mind of the students.

As a result, we have seen a rising trend of students getting high marks in the school examinations but failing in competitive examinations.

Now coming to the point of changing of question patterns in the CBSE examinations from essay type to short answer type questions, there is always a question that if emphasis on short answer type is given, how will it be helpful in adding to the students’ creativity. Ultimately creativity comes out of one’s own thinking and what we could make out here is that moving from long essay type question to the short question will create a situation of less subjectivity.

Because of the new pattern of question setting, the CBSE will have to prepare question banks and the students have to answer from the question banks. This means that the minds of the students will open only to the areas where the question bank opens. This will lead a change in the teaching method of the teachers.

The teaching and experience of the teacher will have to confine only to the areas where the question bank revolves. The impression and view of most of the academicians are that while appreciating the new change care should be taken that the content of the learning should be made closed partially at least in certain areas so that students can search of their own what is there in the hidden side. If the questions for the examinations are already opened then the popular saying ‘an open mind is an empty mind’ will automatically come true.

Creativity out of the minds of the students will not emerge out of the making of question papers easy rather than challenging. If the questions are made easier students have to content with some formulae of physics, chemistry or any subject that matters at the time of examination.

When the students apply those knowledge in practical life then there will be certainly a vacuum. It will be solved if it is to be solved when certain value of the question in essay type be retained for difficulty level and so on.

One of the more things which is found very intriguing in this new scheme of the Central Board is that CBSE says that the pattern of the question which is to be introduced will avoid cheating among the students. But it requires a deeper understanding and sincerity of those who conduct the examination and also the sincerity and integrity of the teachers in the classrooms as well as in the examination halls. The new question pattern may, on the contrary, increase cheating and unfair means. Who knows?

Carrying out educational reforms or question setting reforms is one part of the story. But our heart also ache to see the kinds of disparities that exist in the infrastructure, in the kind of teachers that is provided in the Government schools specially in the rural areas of not only of Manipur but also of whole of India.

What we are suggesting here is that what CBSE is doing should be attempted at a much larger scale taking in view the ground reality of the society involving all the educational board in the country.