FITTING THE MOULD

The Maharashtra Board is going to release model answers for HSC exams. Will these prove to be useful to the students, or create an additional burden?

The Right to Information (RTI) Act, can be a powerful tool for the citizens of the country if used appropriately. Earlier this year, activists Vivek Velankar of the Sajag Nagrik Manch and his colleague Vishwas Sahasrabudhe had corresponded with the education board to make the model answer papers of the HSC science exams held in March 2013 available openly to the public. Their request was in the view of looking at the difficulty levels of the questions in these papers, so that students can analyse their errors and future students can benefit from them, while preparing for next year’s exam.

After a long drawn process of rejected pleas and appeals that followed, the Maharashtra State Board for Secondary and Higher Secondary Education has agreed to release the model answers for science and mathematics papers of the said examination.

Model answers to the physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics papers will be put up. The two activists are of the opinion that giving out the model answers will improve the transparency in the exam and results process. They also maintain that giving away model answers in time would enable students to decide whether or not to opt for revaluation. The question then is to look to the future. Will this help the students? “I feel that once the paper is written, a student can’t do much about it. This will only increase the burden of exam paper correction on the board, and will create more confusion where both deserving and not deserving students will be able to come up with reasons to send papers for revaluation,” says the head of a city college, who does not want to be named.

As far as helping next year’s student goes, there is some grey area there as well. “Students are so bogged down with prepping for the HSC and then the various entrance exams, that any additional burden is unwelcome now,” says Shamali Gupta, the mother of a class 12 student.

In contrast, another parent, Shashi Raja is of the opinion that if the finer aspects of presentation can he, why not. “I believe that the scientific matter is not going to change. So once the student has learnt the stuff, it is only a matter of writing the answer that determines his marks. If these model answers help the students to gain that edge, why not? They do not have to study anything new, just adopt the writing and presentation technique,” he says.