Number of words: 294

Creativity has never been looked at kindly by institutions or governments because creativity implies an independence of thoughts and actions that can often prove embarrassing to the status quo. The examination thus became the proper medium to ensure that all this is channelized through the textbook. That the opinions expressed in books are not debated and the expectation of the examiner in no way differs from the conclusions reached in the textbook. In this way conformity is ensured for all and critical questioning finds no place at the examination. At least in the country where textbooks remain the monopoly of the Government and where answers are expected to be indisputable and the opinion of the author and the board coincide.

Creative work depends on questioning and curiosity. Studying for an examination, which requires appropriate answers to expected questions, spells doom for creativity, creating the myths of knowledge that its plants in its stead. The difference gained by an examination and that gained by creativity differ widely. To illustrate; in history we are taught about men, their lives, their conquests and their ambitions. But these remain lifeless unless we clothe them with human aspirations. It is these aspirations that make these men easier for us to understand. The examination is unable to achieve this. By reducing men nearly to a number and a date in human destiny, it turns the examinee into a merely unwilling and disinterested reciter of facts. The mind needs such stories as the imagination provides, to grow up and be enriched. It is strangely the world of dreams and that often demythologises events for the child probably because the dreams contain disguised in them the heritage of mankind.

Excerpted from page 24 of ‘Examinations: An Informative Update’ by M Mascarenhas.