Dummy Schools: Are schools culprits or victims?

Dilip Modi,  promoter-chairman of the Jhunjhunu (Rajasthan)-based JIVEM Education Pvt. Ltd

Everyone is beating about the bush, no one is trying to kill the snake. Market demand and supply is the biggest deciding factor. The problem is with the system not with the schools. The fact is that schools are dummy because the CBSE board is dummy.

Dear Policy makers and Educators,

Since the pact few years, there is a burning issue of “Dummy Schools” all over India. I am Dr. Dilip Modi working in the field of K-12 Education for the past 41 years in a small town of Rajasthan. I have seen and experienced all the ups and downs in the field of education all these years. I have put my heart and soul into school education for 41 years. But it’s really very disheartening to hear the disrespectful adjective of “dummy school” for any school in the country. I have deeply studied and researched this issue at the grass roots level and so I present my case for the respect, glory and honour these schools rightfully deserve.

Today schools are the softest target. It has become a fashion to blame schools for anything and everything. Actually these schools are not the culprits but the victims. The schools are not dummy but the education boards are. All education boards including the CBSE of the country have themselves chosen to degrade their own examinations and evaluation systems and overall standard. The government of India including all the boards have no faith, no respect for their own examination results and marks.

The board marksheet has no value except as a qualifying status. No higher educational institution or university grants admission to any student based on board marks alone not even for a normal degree college where CUET is applicable. The school boards have given a complete walkover to NTA (National Testing Agency) whose score card is always placed at the top and board marksheets below. Even 100 percent board marks have no value at all and does not even qualify a student for a higher education seat. In this scenario, how and why shouldn’t boards be called dummy?

The NTA is now in a leading position. Board marksheets have lost all its importance, respect and glory. The education boards have never ever tried to defend themselves at any platform. The board marks and result have no weightage at any of level. The boards are themselves responsible for this miserable situation. Slowly and gradually, the boards have lowered the standard of evaluation and examination.

Now I will explain in detail

1. The difficulty level of the board examinations is very low and marks are being freely awarded. So a majority of students score high marks without much effort. As a result, almost all students not only pass the examination but also score 70 percent-plus easily.
2. The passing percentage is as low as 33 percent. The board should reconsider increasing it to 50 percent.
3. Internal assessment/sessional marks are freely awarded in full. Hence, students don’t require to make real efforts to pass the examination. (Scrap these internal assessment marks)
4. Almost 30 percent marks are allotted to practicals in which almost all students are awarded full marks. Hence the marksheet looks very rich. (Discard the practical marks from main marks scoring and award them separately as grades)
5. On the other hand, the difficulty level of competitive exams is very high and only the top scoring students get seats. Hence students focus only on these competitive examinations and completely ignore the board examination. They can easily pass the board examinations with good percentage without much effort.
6. No weightage is given to board marks at any stage so students and parents don’t take the board examinations seriously. (The boards must fight their case to grant at least 50 percent weightage to board marks for admission into higher educational institutes).
7. The JEE and NEET examinations are held during the XII board (JEE first attempt in January itself) and just after the board examinations in the month of April/May only. The class XII student is allowed to register for JEE and NEET when he/she has not cleared the qualifying examination of class XII. How can anyone expect a class XII student to miss her chance with XII and JEE exam in January? This is the major reason why students prefer to enroll in a coaching centre and want to misuse schools as dummy schools. The solution to this problem is very simple. Only those students should be allowed to register for JEE and NEET who have cleared class XII board exams.
8. It’s all driven by market demand and supply. Under the changing scenario, students and parents are career-oriented. Students’ careers are decided by the competitive examination scores only while board exam results are for qualifying status only. Hence the complete education system has actually collapsed. Parents prefer coaching over and above the schools because of the prevailing situation.
9. Hence we must accept the fact that 70 percent of class XI-XII science students are attending coaching classes only as priority and enroll themselves in schools as dummy non-attending students countrywide.
10. Only punishing the targeted defaulting schools with fines and penalties will never ever solve the purpose. The selection of schools for surprise inspection and the process thereafter has opened up the doors for highest level of corruption in boards. The schools become soft targets and hence are punished for no fault on theirs.
11. The culprit is the system which overlaps the schooling system with competitive examinations so far as the timing of board exam and competitive exams are concerned because the competitive exams are held parallelly with school boards so the students and parents have to choose and prioritise between schooling and coaching.
12. The culprits are the students and parents who force the school management to allow their children to remain absent. But no law exists to punish students and parents. If the school is found to be a dummy school, then all students must also be debarred from exams for that session and financial penalties be imposed on their parents.
13. De-affiliating and punishing schools is beating about the bush and not killing the snake.
14. No school is willing to admit dummy students in any case. But over the past 10 years, the schools are gradually looking deserted with poor attendance of classes XI-XII students, followed by students of classes IX-X and now classes VI-VIII students as well. Because all students and parents want their children to be ready in advance for future competitive examinations, they have taken the school board exams for granted. They are 100 percent sure that their ward will qualify the board exams with good scores without attending school for a single day.
15. Actually no student or parent pays the total prescribed school fees for dummy admission. There is a great bargain and the market forces have settled the fees for dummy students which is only 20 percent of the prescribed school fees.
16. In the beginning, very few schools allowed dummy students but gradually schools had no choice but to admit non-attending students or fully close down the science stream.
17. In competitive exams, students are tested for 3 major subjects while they are obliged to study five subjects in schools including English language and the 5th optional subject which has no value at all. So these students want to attend coaching classes so they can focus only on three major subjects.

My suggestions:

1. Bridge the gap of the difficulty levels of board and competitive exams. Scrap internal assessment marks from school boards. Exclude practical marks from main scoring marks. Award practical exam marks separately as grades.
2. Give equal weightage to board and competitive exam marks for admission into an HEIs.
3. Include English language and aptitude tests in competitive exams or exclude such subjects from board exams.
4. While registering for JEE/NEET, students must be a class XII graduate with minimum percentage of marks.
5. Scrap the limit of chances in JEE and allow at least 3 to 4 chances after class XII to every student. Organise competitive exams twice a year.
6. Regulate coaching classes. Don’t allow coaching under-16 years of age or below class X and no coaching should be permitted during school hours.
7. Allow schools to prepare their students for competitive examinations within the school campus only.
8. Stop blaming schools for allowing non- attending dummy students. Instead, punish the coaching institutes and students by debarring them from writing exams and levy a financial penalty on parents.
9. As long as coaching institutes are permitted to teach students upto class X, XI and XII during school hours, dummy schools are inevitable and will surely exist.
10. The new education policy will just be ornamental unless the coaching institutes are regulated and controlled as per Central government guidelines, at the grassroots level across the nation.
11. There will be game of thief and police between the administrations at various levels and the poor schools.
12. When asked about the solutions to the problems related to dummy students to the secretary, CBSE, he has admitted in writing that CBSE’s job is limited to organising examinations and declaring the results only.
13. Hence, CBSE doesn’t have any right to de-affiliate any schools on this ground.
14. Schools are dummy because of choice of parents, students and existence of illegal coaching institutes.
15. Instead of punishing and banning unauthorized and illegal coaching institutes, the system is targeting recognised, authorised and affiliated schools.

Also read: Extraordinary Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2021-22: Dr. Dilip Modi