WHY IS INDIA OBSESSED WITH MARKS?

Are marks really that important? Do they actually define our entire lives? All school and college students often ask these questions to themselves at least once in their lifetime. When you score good grades, you are praised and it is a huge source of pride and achievement for you and your family. Whereas if a person cannot get good marks, they get yelled at and are mocked for not being not intelligent enough. The pressure on students never stops because of the competitive education system. After independence, the Indian government wanted to create a standardized education system to eradicate illiteracy. So, all secondary schools had to work with an examination board. As India opened up to global markets, more schools including private ones had started to open up. Private schools could get away with charging really high fees. This resulted in the growth of the education system at a really fast pace and it also became much more competitive. The business of private tutorials in India is now a multi- billion-dollar business valued at $100 billion. The schools are ranked by the marks that their students get. Apparently, the reputation of the school depends on the marks that their students bring.

Parents expect their children to score well since they pay a huge amount of money for both school and private tuition fees. This further adds to the pressure on students. The high fees do actually put a significant financial strain on the families of the students. Getting into good colleges in India is extremely ruthless. For instance, the acceptance rate in AIIMS New Delhi is 0.19% which means that for approximately 364,000 candidates only 700 seats are available. For the competitive exams the stakes are really high since the marks you score on a single exam will decide which college you will get in. We live in a country where academic success is mostly associated with marks. It is a strongly held belief that those who score more end up having an illustrious career later in life. The importance of attested to high percentages gives rise to the idea that memorizing and rote- learning is more rewarding.

Entrance exams, good grades, highest marks, failing, these are those dreading words which are unfortunately present in every student's vocabulary. The methods of acquiring education shouldn't be this hard and this system definitely needs to be more student-friendly. It is definitely not fair that children are only considered intelligent and bright only if they score well on these unreasonably cutthroat exams. Perhaps, with time we can overcome their illogical obsession that had been induced into us since day one.