Top-scoring students may be basking in glory in this exam results season but noted personalities say the marks-based evaluation is failing India's education system with creativity and innovation taking a backseat.
Most of the schools and higher education institutions are in a race to ensure top scores and good percentages and not on producing good human resource, according to them.
There is shortage of high quality institutes and also not much incentives to original research, they say.
Chairperson and Managing Director of leading biotech firm, Biocon, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said in an era of design thinking, data science and innovation, educational assessment must change from marks-based evaluation to IQ (intelligence quotient) and EQ (emotional quotient)-based systems.
"Project-based experimental learning is essential," she told PTI.
Former Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation, G Madhavan Nair said the marks-based system is outdated and creates unhealthy competition.
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Exams have become "mugging-up" and memory tests, and they are not about the extent of knowledge that the student has acquired, he lamented.
"Students are put through a standard course which produces a stereo-type product," the eminent scientist said.
According to Chairman of Manipal Global Education Services, T V Mohandas Pai, the system has become more rigid and focused on marks; and not on learning and creating excitement and curiosity.
"We need to have more active students, more projects, lighter curriculum, more doing than theory," Pai, a former Head of Human Resources at IT major Infosys where he also served as Chief Financial Officer, told PTI.
He added: "Today, all knowledge is available on the web; what we need is more problem-solving skills."