Under the cover of a phenomenal media shroud, the most outlandish social experiments are being not only planned but actually insidiously put in place. Without further ado – let me introduce the latest scheme. Value Education

CHENNAI: From this academic year, the Central Board of Secondary Education exam will not just tell students whether they are eligible for higher studies. It will also test them if they are fit to live in the society. In the Class 10 and 12 board exams 5% of marks in each of the core subjects will be allotted for value education. The idea is to prepare students to live in a multilingual, multicultural and multi-religious country.

What this means to kids at XII level no less.

In each subject, 5% weightage will be given at the summative assessment level or board exam to answers to value education questions integrated with the content. The questions will be for five marks in a 100-marks paper and 3-4 marks in a paper of 70-90 marks. A potential question in economics is: a father in his will gives 40% each to his son and daughter and 20% to his servant who has been with him for long. Why has he done it and what is the value addition? Answer: Gender equality and charity. Source : TOI ( I didnt believe it until I grabbed the letter sent by CBSE to schools PDF 22_2012_Value_based_qs_XII)

Those who read my previous post on CCE will recall that each student is evaluated in two parts – a formative assessment (40%) and a summative assessment (60%). We also read about the types of life skills and behaviour patterns that make up the formative assessment. The summative assessment was a non standard internal test. This “value skill” wants to chop of another 5% from the summative part although the 40% in the formative part is all about this too.

Needless to say this is extremely disturbing. They want to assign marks to desirable types of social outlook. Watch this example from a Physics board exam.

Three astronauts are descending from a space station to earth when, suddenly, one of their air tankers bursts. Now, this may seem like a developing question to test the knowledge of a physics student – specifically how much force the astronaut will have to maintain for preventing a direct fall, or how it will affect his body mass – but the actual focus lies elsewhere. Through this, the student will be ‘tested’ with regard to the values embedded in him. He will, instead, be quizzed on what the other astronauts should do in such a situation, and how the experience could weave a life-long camaraderie between the three. So, though the subject is fundamentally that of physics, the question would be more on the lines of value education. Source: HT

Got it ? Even though this is a Physics exam, the value question will be about how astronauts free falling with “air tanks” build friendship. There is another example in Biology about how the stomach digests food, the answer is again different “particles” working together. Various intellectuals are now preparing a question bank as I am typing this.

I dont know where to begin. Inter alia other terrifying things, the school punishes kids who think differently. If I were an astronaut free falling from 300km with an air tank – I would certainly not try to make a friendship. But that would be penalized – just like a naughty student will be under the FA part of CCE.

So how bad are we ?

India is bad in educational standards today. How bad ? You need to read about the PISA assessment scores in 2009. This is an exam conducted under the auspices of OECD. 64 countries were given a well designed test to measure basic aptitude and reading skills (in native language) to 15 year olds. India sent what they considered to be the two best states (TN and HP). Guess what happened ? We came in second last. Only the tiny central asian state of Kyrgystan was worse. Shanghai province of China topped the list. I have some great links I will post shortly, but this was a national shame.

I repeat myself but the only way we are going to get out of third world squalour is by leveraging our human capital. The official government response might well be “lets not do PISA tests anymore or even a lecture on how important social skills are compared to such tests “. Reality is that our window is closing rapidly where we can take advantage of our demographic curve. In 15 yrs, it is game over.

This gift of the UPA is going to leave a permanent scar unless checked. Unfortunately the country is still in a slumber. Cozy as ever in the conventional wisdom they gather everyday from the papers. All izz well.