Top-scoring students may be basking in glory in this exam results season but noted personalities say the marks-based evaluation is failing India's education system with creativity and innovation taking a backseat.
Most of the schools and higher education institutions are in a race to ensure top scores and good percentages and not on producing good human resource, according to them.
There is a shortage of high quality institutes and also not much incentives to original research, they say.
Chairperson and Managing Director of leading biotech firm, Biocon, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said in an era of design thinking, data science and innovation, educational assessment must change from marks-based evaluation to IQ (intelligence quotient) and EQ (emotional quotient)-based systems.
"Project-based experimental learning is essential," she said.
Former Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation, G Madhavan Nair said the marks-based system is outdated and creates unhealthy competition.
Exams have become "mugging-up" and memory tests, and they are not about the extent of knowledge that the student has acquired, he lamented.
"Students are put through a standard course which produces a stereotype product," the eminent scientist said.
According to Chairman of Manipal Global Education Services, T V Mohandas Pai, the system has become more rigid and focused on marks; and not on learning and creating excitement and curiosity.
"We need to have more active students, more projects, lighter curriculum, more doing than theory," Pai, a former Head of Human Resources at IT major Infosys where he also served as Chief Financial Officer, said.
He added: "Today, all knowledge is available on the web; what we need is more problem-solving skills.
"Secretary-General of industry body ASSOCHAM, D S Rawat said most of the higher study institutions and even schools are in a race to ensure top scores or good percentages. As long as there are no incentives on original research, you can say, we are producing products and not a good human resource from the universities," Rawat said.
Agreeing with the view, Nair, said there is no scope in the present system to assess an individual's talent and scientific temperament.
