Number of words: 549

Competition has become a whipping boy for education in India. In their enthusiasm to strengthen gentle values like kindness and concern, educationists are apt to turn a blind eye to any good that competition might suggest. And so cooperation is paraded almost to the exclusion of competition. The reason preferred for this stand is that common good is preferred to the individual good. A ticklish ethical consideration. But are we sure about what we need to incorporate? Certainly we have no business cooperating in a regime that professes racialism, as the apartheid practiced in South Africa. Brameld would accordingly temper his concept of cooperation and like education to control man’s powers, especially of independent thinking and see that they are used for his good and not for his annihilation. You would accomplish this by seeking out the rational in men and directing it towards that which will benefit him and society. It certainly would not be harnessed to power structures in politics and economics because this would only enhance their importance and not work necessary towards the emancipation of men.

The administrator has no reason to decide upon a curriculum and policy which would remain the prerogative of practicing teachers. The teacher is like a banker who controls evaluation, the currency of the classroom economy. The evaluations are the notes that the student pays with interest and which may be called in by the bank at any time. In this system of exchange it is likely that if a student shows great interest, i.e. a lot of attention, then the loan of a positive evaluation is secure. Such an interaction will involve not only the cooperation between the student and teacher, it will also include the beating of one mind against another, an important competitive advantage that could imply cultural possibilities when culture is defined as the best that has been thought and said, leading to a total perfection.

Students do benefit from contact with minds of equal intensity. This is why the non streamed class is often preferred to the streamed. Not for nothing for the Olympics and other international sports held in high esteem. Examinations similarly need to be defined as sportsmanship, their evils singled out and deleted, the good qualities nurtured and cherished. The trouble with the current curriculum is that it focuses too much on data to be assimilated without any relation to life situations. This makes the entire school experience of a child a barren exercise, giving life with blinkers on, unable to see the real problem that besets both him and society, and therefore expecting no solutions. A part of the breakdown in values today in the country could well be attributed to this lack of independent thinking of not being able to put one’s finger on the pulse of society and to come up with answers; Inevitable though they might be, yet the fruit of individual effort, and provocative enough to initiate national debate. For democracy, as always, thrives on discussion, on a multiplicity of views that finally crystallize into applicable solutions, rather than on a uniformity from which, much as it may appeal to a government that wants compliance, can only lead to mediocrity in its people.

Excerpted from pages 16 to 17 of ‘Examinations: An Informative Update’ by M Mascarenhas.