ABSTRACT
Formal education, we all realize, is not just about acquisition of knowledge and skills. It is also about filtering people. It is about certification and credentials. It is about success and failure, selection and elimination. While it elevates some, it excludes others. The stigma of ‘failure’ is inseparable from the valorization of ‘success’. To make my point clear, let me begin with a simple example—an experience that as a teacher I cannot escape. I know a student who is eager, honest, alert and a curious learner. However, in a series of entrance tests for the doctoral programme she could not get through. With pain and anxiety, she asked me: ‘Sir, am I really so bad?’ ‘Don’t think like this’, I told her. ‘Examinations or entrance tests’, I added, ‘are least interested in knowing you, discovering you, showing you a direction; instead, examinations are conducted primarily to eliminate people on the basis of a criterion that need not necessarily be the best one.’ I was not diplomatic. Nor did I give her false consolation. I was trying to make a serious point of critical enquiry.
