For me, the enemy is procrastination and losing attention, you know? It’s not the writing that’s difficult, it’s sitting down to write — if that makes any sense. I feel I can write pretty well and I can write pretty effectively.
- Moshe Kasher (b 1979), American stand-up comedian, writer and actor
Those of you Edex readers who had your educational roots in Kindergarten would recall the Aesop’s Fables. One of the 226 fables is The Tortoise and the Hare. It is an account of a race between unequal partners. In it, the hare constantly ridicules a slow-moving tortoise. Tired of the hare’s arrogant behaviour, the tortoise challenges him to a race. During the race, the hare runs ahead, leaving the tortoise behind and, confident of winning, he takes a nap midway through the race. When the hare awakes, however, he finds that his competitor, crawling slowly but steadily, has arrived at the set destination before him.
This tale has now acquired fresh currency with developments in India’s educational scene. But first, the facts excerpted from The New Indian Express titled CBSE Class XII Boards Nixed (2/6/21):
Citing “Uncertain conditions due to COVID and feedback obtained from various stakeholders”, the Central Government, on June 1, announced the cancellation of this year’s CBSE Board examination for Class XII students, following a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The results will be compiled as per “well-defined objective criteria”, the Government said. Following the CBSE’s decision, the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) followed suit and scrapped the ISC Class XII examination.
The CBSE, sources said, will set up a committee to decide the alternative scheme for tabulating results. A student’s performance in internal school assessments will be a crucial part of the scheme. There comes the catch for those ‘hares’ who ignored the internal exams with confidence that they would show off their prowess in the traditionally projected public exams. They would now have to pay for sleeping through the
internal exams, much like the hare.
