All about exams: India’s education system must remedy several distortionary forces

Article Summary

The article at issue is a commentary on the Indian education system that exposes pitfalls often ignored by traditional reportage. It begins with and chiefly comments on board exams results recently published in India, and the ensuing competitions for higher education institutes that they will be the first step towards. The situation in India is extremely competitive, putting undue pressure on children, increasing when high marks are awarded to everyone and students do not make the cut even with a 90+ percentage. However, the deeper issue here is the excessive focus on, even fetishization of, examinations, harming the quality of actual learning. Sub-par higher education institutes are also to blame for that, per the article. Educated citizens India produces are hardly employable, and the education system in India is nowhere intelligent enough to address and fix issues like the disproportionate female representation in the professional sector, or the risk of ever-tanking employment opportunities with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI). The author(s) wish(es) that education was a subject acting as pivot this election season, if only to solve the intrinsic problems in that domain.