Is Competitive Exams for School Students Necessary?
Nowadays many parents want their children to be groomed early and show excellence in all the examinations. I recently came across about standardized tests from our neighbors child who goes to a CBSE School in Coimbatore, India. The kid showed us medals of achievement given to him for excellent performance in Olympiad exams. It made me think are standardized tests necessary? Do the kids get stressed?
What do you think?? Are these competitive exams really necessary for school students?
Some of the famous Competitive exams for school students are:
Olympiads
NLSTSE (National Level Science Talent Search Exam)
NTSE (National Talent Search Examination)
KVPY (Kishore Vigyan Protsahan Yojana)
ASSET (Assessment of Scholastic Skills through Educational Testing)
IAIS (International Assessment for Indian Schools)
CPYLS Scholarship (CSIR Program for Youth on Leadership)
These tests help the children to explore beyond the textbook and it increases confidence level. Olympiads are the exams conducted based on the school syllabus concentrating on Computer, Mathematics, Science, English and General Knowledge. There are many exams like NCO, NSO, IMO, IEO, IIO, IOS, IOM, IOEL, SKGKO, ASSET, IAIS, NSTSE, UCO conducted through various independent organizations.
I feel that today with so many types of curriculum and methods of teaching, it is good to see how your child performs in a level playing field of such Competitive exams. These exams are necessary because it is the platform which removes the fear of exams and helps children to face the competition. The organizations provide students with performance report and participation certificate. They also give rewards and awards for students who score high. This is both good for the school to make sure its students are in a comparable level with others in the same age category and also lets the parents know where their kids stand in the national level.
The only aspect as parents we should be aware off is not force too many of these extra tests on the children. You could choose one set of exams (ASSET or Olympiads or any other one of your choice) and maintain that throughout to see the trend and improvement of your child, than making them participate in all the exams and get mediocre scores. Continuous under performance will put the child’s confidence levels down. Let your kid study in any school, assess them with limited number of standardized tests and keep yourself happy.