grading system a magical, potion to de-stress the GenNext?

Is grading system a magical, potion to de-stress the GenNext?

Before we dwell on the subject, let me give a brief history of grading system, which was originally the brainchild of a lazy English tutor William Farish. William Farish was a tutor at Cambridge University in England in 1792 who came up with this method of teaching to allow him to process students—mind you I use the word process—in a shorter period of time. He invented grades. This was because getting to know his students was too much trouble for him. It meant work, interacting and participating with each child. It meant paying attention to their needs, to their style of learning. It meant there was a limit on the number of students he could thus get to know and therefore a limit on how much money he could earn.
So he came up with this grading system. As though students were products of a factory or fruits which could be segregated and graded.
Based on well-established time-tested facts and vast storehouse of information on this 200-year-old system of evaluating a student’s performance I can just make the following observations. The grading system is neither a potion nor a lotion, but a concoction of all sorts of confusions to be implemented by a few educationists in our country in the name of an evaluating procedure of the education system.
Against this backdrop, I firmly believe that there can be no magical potion in this extremely competitive world to de-stress the GenNext except sheer hardwork. I repeat sheer hardwork is the only magical potion to de-stress the GenNext and as for the grading system, it is just a method to hide the flaws in the present education system.
Grading system doesn’t recognize the merit of a hardworking, sincere, devoted , study-conscious, diligent student and equates him with a student who is much below his caliber. Due to inherent lacunae in the education system, this unwise system of awarding grades on the performance of a student is only objective and doesn’t recognize the subjective performance in the examination.
In fact this highly confused system has done tremendous harm to the core of competition and achieving excellence. My worthy opponents would blame the marks based evaluating system for the increasing number of suicides among students. But, this is not true. If the NCRB figures on teenage suicides are to be believed less than half the suicide cases are due to exam. Related stress-43% to be precise. Rest 57% is due to other reasons like warring parents, sibling rivalry, death of a loved one, distressed parents. The answer to the problem of suicides lies not in the changeover to grade system but in proper psychological treatment so that doesn’t have difficulty in coping with life’s disappointments. Grading system is nothing but a sugarcoated pill, which is killing the excellence in performance and spirit of competition. If grading system is the magic wand of educational ills then why don’t we implement it in various entrance examinations?
Here, I wish to point out the salient inherent defects of grading system, which have been noticed in a very recent survey. Firstly, the grading system does not make students smarter in fact it has the opposite effect. Secondly, grades do not give students deeper insight into topic of study, instead it forces students to memorize by rote only those details that are required to pass the test. Thirdly, grading system does not encourage critical analytical thinking. Lastly, it dos not stimulate the students to discuss the detailed contents of the subject with fellow students.
And my dear opponents for your kind information I would like to tell you that in a huge country like India grading system will not work. We have so many boards in various states and also at the central level. So friends how do you plan to normalize the scoring? The competition level in our country is so high that even 0.1 marks make a huge difference. If for an entrance exam there are only 50 seats but 100 students with a grade, who all are you gong to select? Do you have any option but to resort to marking system?
I would like to emphasize that grading system will kill the competitiveness among the students instead of de -stressing them. Competition should be taken in a positive way and for survival one has to be ever competitive as it is said ‘survival of the fittest.’
In the end I would like to pose a question to our honorable judges. Sir and madam I would like to ask you that in today’s debate are you going to rank the participants on the basis of marks or grades ?