The Verdict
The cost of grades

The cost of grades

Where, originally, the purpose of education was to learn, absorb and engage in critical thinking, nowadays the goal is simply to trump the other student.

Sarah Khan September 25, 2010

By the end of my first semester in university, I became aware that my approach towards education is becoming what the university wants it to be – grades oriented and competitive, wanting to be better than the others, but not because learning is the aim. Without my realising it, the concept of education had changed in my mind. Now it was just a matter of mere numbers (marks) and letters (grades).

Relative grading in educational institutions teaches students one simple rule: your grade depends on how others have done in your class. So if the rest of the class has done average, and you are a just a little above average, your reward will be way more than what you actually deserve.

Basically you bank on someone else’s poor performance. Hence, after every quiz or exam I started praying for others (which could include my friends as well) to do terribly. Where, originally, the purpose of education was to learn, absorb and engage in critical thinking, nowadays the whole idea seems to be dramatically changed.

Thus we see things like students stealing their colleagues’ notebooks and tearing pages from the library books so that others are deprived of the information. Many would deliberately not tell their own friends about upcoming quizzes, exams etc. Others would pray day and night for the rest of the class to do badly.

The goal was simply to trump the other. Extreme as this may sound, these instances of harming others are unfortunately not figments of my imagination, they are the reality in many schools across the country. A reality that has been forcefully created by a a mindset that we need to do away with.

Though, educational institutions boast that competition is healthy and it prepares the students for the ‘real world’ which they step into immediately after graduating, I believe this line of thinking does more harm than good. The method of grading and the values taught at institutions produce a grade-obsessed, stressful culture at an age when people are vulnerable.

WRITTEN BY:
Sarah Khan A sub-editor on the sport pages of The Express Tribune

The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necassarily reflect the views and policies of the Express Tribune.

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COMMENTS (13)

Saad Khalid | 14 years ago | Reply I agree with the writer. "Relative ka zamana hai" is the most popular phrase of our University. Well relative lifts up the competition but in some cases students exploit this relative system and use it for their own good like whole class not submitting assignment or same assignment as this will not effect the relative grading.

Hassaan Zia | 14 years ago | Reply Agreed 100%

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INAM | 14 years ago | Reply what a stupid article, these kind of articles and books had made me insane when i was a student. and i always thought good grades are not necessary for a successful career, so i tried the things opposite it and learn things which were of my interest that made me good and satisfied but unfortunately when i was graduated and applied for jobs, the situation became totally different , the multinational called those students for interviews who has the highest grades and I stood last in the row. but any how i managed it to my career but was unemployed for a couple of months just because of my poor grades.So I am requesting all the students that always strive for the best grades, if you failed you ll for sure be in the good students.

Sarah B. Haider | 14 years ago | Reply A true insight into the prevalent education practices. Well written. I think that the trend of copying down the lectures is also a laborious activity. Students concentrate solely on listening and jotting things down without thoroughly understanding what the lecture is about. People usually write things down so that they can write them same in the exam paper, and they do not have to go through books per se. I remember my IR teacher prohibited the practice of writing in the class, and would always say "attentiveness is the ink of mind". The principle worked wonders, because my classmates and I never jotted anything down during the lectures, and yet we can clearly remember the things we had discussed in the class. Education should be such that can help a student relate it to every facet of life, not just cram things up to get good grades, and become the apple of the teachers' eyes.

CRITIC | 14 years ago | Reply Oh I though LUMS was some how different :s

LALIT | 14 years ago | Reply unless someone comes with a machine ,a sort of an x-ray to measure the wisdom and intelligence...grade will do

arsalan | 14 years ago | Reply i am univ student and totally agreed with you. i remember one of my teacher who told us " do not be grade hunters, seek knowledge".

Shumaila | 14 years ago | Reply I kind of disagree. You state that relative grading means that if the whole class does average, and you do a bit more, you're going to be better off. Whereas in real life, what happens is everyone works just that bit harder, and the competition pushes grades to an acceptably high level defined by the average intelligence and the hard work everyone puts in. So while some resort to pushing others down, most realise that pushing people down will never be as effective as pulling yourself up. Plus practically speaking, real life really is worse. People will claw you down in real life, and uni isn't middle school - its supposed to prepare you for those claws. Deal with it.

parvez | 14 years ago | Reply Nice article. You have a valid point. But you must concede that some system is needed to evaluate performance. Possibly grading is one of the oldest effective systems around and so it is still in use. Also grading is only part of the whole educational process. Education is that what is left over after you have long forgotten what you learnt at school.

Hikmatyar Wali | 14 years ago | Reply What an abject excuse of a blog post. All systems come about as a result of the resources available with a given set of goals in mind. The role played by grades is not only to tell you how well you have done, but also as a signalling factor to others looking to employ you (or admit you into a grad school) about how good you are. Not all systems are made perfect, but in an imperfect world relative grading does exactly what it is supposed to do - show you where you stand insofar as learning outcomes are concerned (as defined and tested by the teachers) as compared to the rest of your class. Relative grading, when combined with proper calibration of teacher and course difficulty throughout the university and across the system, can provide a good sense of where an individual stands in his given cohort. Now of course, you can respond with positivity and deal with the system as it is. The basic point here is this - if you are indeed committed to learning, you give your hundred percent - you are likely to do better on the exam/any other form of testing, than the same you who didn't give it their all. In that sense, grading of any form does help in being a source of drive. You can view professional life in the same way - you can say that if your salary is a result only of how good your relative performance is (many American companies provide salary increments and bonuses based on your performance compared to the rest of your cohort), then you will work on pulling others down, while sucking up to a system that way. Of course, various companies have different safeguards and cultural values that results in outcomes not quite similar to that. Another way of looking at the same thing is that if you work well to satisfy yourself and take pride in the quality of work, you will do well in the long run since you have made valuable contributions and learnt important things. Such is the case with education too, as long as you can leave your ego out of the way, and focus on the core value of education - learning the world around you and becoming a better human being - then it will reveal great long-term benefits to you (some explicit and some implicit). Grading is ultimately one of the many parts of the puzzle when it comes to providing a good educational experience. Amongst other things it can include: 1) Curriculum 2) Quality and Dedication of the Teacher 3) Student-Teacher Ratio 4) Avenues provided to students to involve themselves in research/internship programs/apprenticeship programs, etc. and other supplemental activities that aid their education. 5) Kind of testing means involved (do you grade only on exams, or do you also include projects, quizzes, papers (long and short), class participation, etc.) It is easy to criticize anything if the goals of a given tool/process are not understood. As an indicator of your prowess, relative grading does a fantastic job all else equal. Ultimately, what it all comes down to is your attitude and your values in life. In the long run, grades are a mere formality - an indicator of your progress (if you view it as that), but otherwise merely something to placate your ego (if it is so) and your parents (if they are such) - if you are studying to learn, and do it with enough focus and dedication, you will always do well in the long run.

Moosa Lakhani. | 14 years ago | Reply i so totally agree to what you just said. i am also facing the same situation and when i talked to the authorities about it, they say, it is the policy.

Ghausia | 14 years ago | Reply Sadly enough so true. I remember hearing from my schoolmates whose sisters were still there that the eight-graders were being made to study The Alchemist in English class, my school already isn't full of enlightened individuals, its just a normal average school, plus kids these days really can't handle such 'advanced' reading at that age. And then there's the matric system. I think at this point all we're left with is the real world, that's the only place left for us to learn anything anymore, since our educational institutions can't teach us anymore.

Miriam | 14 years ago | Reply Totally agreed. The attraction for students at schools is becoming grades and not learning.

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