The highest marks I ever obtained in my otherwise sunny school career was a 77, achieved partially because no one was looking. Most of the time I was the sort of sacrificing student who made it possible for the others to shine.
I knew I was smart, I just wasn’t fanatic about it. Besides, when we were in school it was a slightly wimpish teacher’s pet kind of thing to get 77 marks in anything. Teachers also did not give you over 60 unless you deserved it which usually you didn’t.
So when you got a self-respecting 53.5 your parents blessed the Lord and had a small thanksgiving.
We didn’t really care.
That’s why it came as a bit of surprise when, on a visit to a close friend, I find gloom as thick as a fog greying the family cheer. Their son is sobbing his heart out, great wracking sobs. The father sits sallow and grim, his head in his hands, the mother, stern and tight-lipped, a tableaux in sorrow.
Being quick on the uptake I say, what happened?
Ask him, says Daddy bitterly, Yes, ask him says Mummy, her eyes rippling with unshed tears. The young man executes a couple of heaves and I say, what have you done, son, tell Uncle Bik. I’m sure we can solve it.
Ha, says Daddy mirthlessly.
Ho, says Mummy heartbrokenly. The boy hiccups and careens off into another wail. His exam result has just arrived, says Daddy, It’s all over, our dreams shipwrecked on the rocks...rocks of...rocks of....
Reality, says Mummy, harsh reality. Our hopes dashed on the pebbles of our bad luck (where did this one study?)
He’s so smart, I say, how could he fail?
Wish he had, they say, wish he had, better than this.....he flings the paper at me. The boy has an 82 aggregate. But that’s terrific.
I say, that’s great. What’s the fuss about?
What do you know, he says, that’s the twilight zone, neither here nor there, no decent college will touch him. He won’t make any merit list. Oh, what will his grandfather say. We wanted him to become another Denton Cooley.
And the whole family goes into this group version of “Woe is me”.
Nothing I say can console them and I leave believing there must be something dramatically wrong with any educational system that indicts a child as mediocre for scoring 82.
By the same token, the flaw compounds itself when the evaluators can exercise the power to create perfection. It is difficult to accept a 16-year old being awarded 97 percent in essay writing or rating a 98 in geography. To project a mathematical accuracy to language and expression is to presume the evaluator’s intrinsic genius and the child’s adolescent brilliance, as the final word. Was it not Francis Bacon who said, I have knowledge in my province. Sorry Frankie, you are not alone.
But it certainly is happening and this upgrade has created a vast segment of school-going children condemned because they paradoxically do very well but not well enough. By strange irony the ones who still earn only 40 and 50 percent have a slot reserved for them. They are protected as being “backward” and given special treatment and attention. They are helped along by a system that recognizes their existence.
But the upper sixties and seventies are chilled out, neither here nor there — imagine the stunning soul-destructive impact of being left out of a merit list because you got only 76 percent. I remember arbitrating a medical college case in Goa where the student had a 69.8 percent, played badminton for the state, and also excelled as a debater and dramatics performer. He was not allowed in because he fell short of the minimum qualification by 0.2 percent.
Who can judge or dare to judge such absurd shades of difference? Ironic, isn’t it? If I’d ever hit a 69 percent aggregate we’d have called all the relatives over for a eat-your-heart-out celebration. Dad would have said, my son, my son and Mum would have said, just like his father.
Now you get a first division and it’s a punishment. That title used to be top whack. Fifteen years down the road you have it diluted by distinctions, A plus grades, outstandings, maxmarks (that’s cent-per-cent) and other esoteric labels that were unheard of a generation ago.
You know what is most frightening about it all?
If you get 99 at 16, where do you go from there....A one-way ride to lunacy.
