Let’s learn beyond the grades

The Centre is mulling a review of the difficulty level of entrance exams like JEE and NEET to ensure they are in sync with the Class 12 curriculum, and that students do not have to depend so heavily on coaching. It may sound like another bureaucratic headline — yet for millions of students across India, it is a hope that perhaps the very system that defines their lives might, finally, be rethought.

The announcement follows years of mounting concern over India’s coaching culture, a parallel education system that has become both symptom and cause of our exam obsession. From Kota to Hyderabad, from Patna to Pune, teenagers live in hostels where they memorise formulas by the dozen, sleep just a few hours, and measure self-worth in ranks and percentiles. The government’s decision to examine whether these exams are disproportionately difficult — and whether they propel students toward coaching centres — is pragmatic and overdue.

But the deeper question remains: how did we come to a point where success in one examination defines a young person’s identity?

For decades, grades and exam scores have acted as the currency of opportunity. They decide who studies medicine, who becomes an engineer, who earns a scholarship and who is labelled “brilliant” or otherwise. The logic sounds meritocratic — sorting by talent — but in practice, this race rewards not the curious, but the coached. It privileges speed and memory over understanding and originality. Students learn not to ask “Why does this matter?” but “Will this come in the exam?” Education, once a space for exploration, has turned into a contest of survival.

In June this year, the Ministry of Education set up a nine-member expert panel headed by Higher Education Secretary Vineet Joshi, tasked with examining issues around coaching dependence, ‘dummy schools’ and the fairness of entrance examinations. Its mandate includes studying whether critical thinking, analytical skills and innovation get sidelined in classrooms and how rote learning practices continue to dominate. The inclusion of representatives from CBSE, NCERT, IITs and NITs suggests the review is not superficial.

Pressure to perform often begins early and runs deep. In many private schools, children already feel the weight of marks. By Classes 11 and 12, many equate their worth with numbers — their sense of identity trimmed to a rank card. Coaching hubs across India report stress, burnout and mental health crises among aspirants. The horror of student suicides, particularly in coaching centres like those in Kota, is widely documented.

Parliamentary data and NCRB figures lend gravity to this concern. In 2022, India recorded over 1.7 lakh suicides. Of these, nearly eight per cent were by students, and more than two thousand deaths were attributed to exam failure. The number of student suicides has risen sharply over the past decade, increasing by more than sixty per cent between 2013 and 2023. These statistics are more than cold numbers; they are silent tragedies in corridors, hostels and homes.

If the government’s review merely simplifies exam questions, it will be a partial remedy. The trouble is not simply the difficulty of questions but how narrow our definition of success has become. As long as engineering and medicine remain the foremost markers of achievement, and schooling continues to privilege rote learning, coaching will simply evolve to match the next test format.

What makes this debate urgent is not only fairness, but the kind of society we aim to nurture. Measuring brilliance by exam scores risks producing graduates who can solve equations but not problems, memorise theories but struggle with empathy, communication or leadership. The demands of the twenty-first century — creativity, collaboration, adaptability — are precisely the qualities our current education system sidelines. The result is a generation that is academically accomplished, perhaps, but emotionally strained.

In truth, grades were never designed to measure human potential; they were a shorthand for progress. Over time, they have turned into identity. Students call themselves “average” or “topper” as though those labels were permanent, rather than fleeting assessments. The traits that truly define us — curiosity, resilience, kindness, imagination — rarely fit within a report card.

Reform must begin at both ends: exams and education. If entrance tests are to align with school curricula, curricula themselves must evolve. Classrooms need space for questioning and exploration. Teachers require time, support and professional training to move beyond the textbook. Assessment models should reward reasoning and growth, not just accuracy. Schools must be strengthened, not side-lined.

Parents have a role, too. Asking a child “What did you discover today?” instead of “What grade did you get?” may sound small, but it changes the emotional framework of learning. It signals that knowledge, not compliance, is the goal. Employers should likewise look beyond perfect transcripts and ask what a candidate has built, learned or contributed — not simply what they scored.

Meritocracy is easy to profess; admitting its limitations is harder. Coaching centres thrive because they monetise aspiration and fill the educational gaps our public system left behind. Unless those gaps are addressed, any review of exam difficulty will be but a partial cure. But even a partial remedy is worthy if it chips away at the myth that grades and ranks define worth.

When results are published each year, toppers are celebrated as if they alone carry the future. But for every name on the merit list, there are thousands who worked just as hard, learned just as much — only luck, timing or format favoured someone else. Their potential is not lesser, merely less visible.

If this new review helps India remember that brilliance cannot be standardised, that learning is more than performance, then it will have done more than revise an exam: it will remind us that education’s true goal is the thoughtful citizen. Grades can tell us how a student performed; they can never tell us who they are. And who they are — their questions, their courage, their curiosity — matters long after the mark sheet is forgotten.