State of High School Education in India...

My View:

Few articles concern me more than ones talking about the success rate? What is success anyway? Is success just mugging up answers and then vomiting them out in examinations? And who gave them the right to say a student is a failure if he or she dislikes this idiotic method of learning by rote. I agree that many schools today are adopting the best methodologies for teaching. But at the end of the day, all students have to do is to mug up pages after pages to pass at the examination, leave alone securing a position in the elite 90+ club [see maa, i am one of the best muggers].

If a student fails, isn't that the failure of the system, failure of the teachers and their teaching methods? Surely it can't be that hard to enthuse a student towards self-learning!

Maharashtra Lags Way Behind - TOI

Hemali Chhapia | TNN

Mumbai: If class X students from across the country were to take a common exam, who would perform the best? Believe it or not, students from Bihar’s madrasa board would stand high, next only to students of the ICSE board in Delhi.
Comparing the performance of educational boards across India, the Human Resource Development (HRD)
ministry has recently released a report on student performance in various states in class X. The results have the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination in Delhi topping with the highest pass percentage of 94.3%, followed by the Bihar state Madrasa Board with a success rate of 91.4%. The Central Board of Secondary Education, Delhi stands at third place with an overall pass percentage of 86.4%. Maharashtra is way down at 57.6%.
The report released last month compares 2005 data across the country. Madhav Chavan, founder of educational non-profit Pratham, pointed out that the findings contradict the “stereotype that madrasas are religious training schools’’. It vindicates “the historical view’’ that a voluntary process of education which involves progressive elements in a society coming forward to educate the backward sections often results in a successful model for formal education, he said.
Unlike other boards which have a large student base, both the ICSE and madrasa boards have lower student populations taking the exam. States like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal have lakhs of students sitting for the class X exam. Peggy Mohan, a linguist and a former professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, pointed out that the madrasa board, being run on a smaller scale, was probably more flexible than such “regimented state boards’’.
However, some experts countered that boards handling lakhs of students see a diverse mix whose results may vary on the basis of several factors. Basanti Roy, divisional secretary of Mumbai, Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, said of the 15 lakh students who took the class X exam in the state, a large population came from the rural hinterland which lacked good teachers. The state board thus enjoyed higher success rates in smaller, urban pockets. Albeit, the argument is thin when seen in a broader light. UP, for instance, had the maximum number of students taking the class X exam—over 25 lakh; yet its success rate stands at 68.3%, way above Maharashtra’s.