After supervising several Class 10 and 12 examination centres, we walk away with a heavy heart and a question that refuses to leave us: What has happened to our education system?
In hall after hall, we observed rows of students sitting idle during the most crucial half of their board examinations. Some stared helplessly at their papers, others waited anxiously for a chance to copy from the few who looked slightly more confident. Many had no idea what to write. Some had stopped trying altogether.
What was once a space filled with ambition, curiosity, and the pressure to excel has quietly transformed into a place where students hope only for the bare minimum: thirty three percent, usually obtained through unfair means. Disturbingly, even scoring that much through copying brought excitement, as though a remarkable achievement had been unlocked!
This painful shift reveals a deeper crisis. In Jammu and Kashmir, unemployment casts a long shadow over our youth. For many, education has collapsed into a mere ritual, performed not for growth or empowerment but simply for survival. When children begin to believe that education promises nothing beyond a marksheet, their vision shrinks. Learning is abandoned for shortcuts, understanding is sacrificed to memorisation, and curiosity suffocates under the weight of an uncertain future.
We find ourselves asking: Are we studying merely to pass exams, or to understand life? Is literacy defined by certificates, or by the ability to think, create, and question?
What troubles us even more is the growing pressure from parents themselves. After the very first paper, we received the roll number slips of every student appearing at our centre on WhatsApp. Although we ensured a fair examination, we were left wondering: Why do parents insist, often through known teachers, on such assistance? For some, we become helpful; for others, we are labelled rude or strict simply because we choose integrity over compromise.
This erosion of values is not sudden. It is the outcome of years of neglect, lack of meaningful opportunities, and a widening gap between learning and livelihood. But the consequences will be lasting. A generation raised on copying cannot hope to compete, innovate, or uplift its society.
The time has arrived for parents, educators, policymakers, and all of us to confront this crisis. We must restore the purpose of education not as a ticket to employment alone but as a foundation for thought, character, resilience, and growth.
Until then, our examination halls will remain silent not with discipline but with despair.
We still remember our own exam days the strange blend of discipline and adrenaline. We prepared seriously. Even whispering in the hall felt like a grave offence. There was dignity in that silence.
That is why the first time we witnessed miniature notes being exchanged during Our Masters examination, we were left speechless. A girl tossed a tiny folded paper across the room, and the sanctity of the hall seemed to fall apart. What shocked us even more was the craftsmanship of these micro notes. The amount of time spent making them could easily have built genuine understanding.
Our disappointment deepened when we later saw similar tricks being passed to students facing board exams for the first time. Innocence meeting malpractice, and no one finding anything unusual!
Then came the moment that still stings! A girl on duty day said casually, “Sir it is getting late. No one has come to show us the objectives yet.” Her tone carried no guilt. On another occasion, a student directly asked to be shown the objectives. We snatched her paper instinctively, but her innocent expression struck us. She genuinely believed it was normal because the system had trained her so.
And now, we see students scoring perfect five hundred out of five hundred so easily that it feels unreal. The numbers look glossy on paper, but they hide a painful truth: a broken examination culture where marks overshadow merit, where passing replaces learning, and where shortcuts are celebrated as success.
We often ask ourselves one simple question: What future awaits students who climb the educational ladder through mass copying? What happens when life demands competence, not chits? How will they value learning when we ourselves dilute its meaning? How will they respect education when we permit practices that corrode it?
If we drift like this, the entire system will collapse into mediocrity. We will keep producing certificates instead of capable minds. And while the world races ahead in artificial intelligence, robotics, and frontier innovation, we will remain preoccupied with manufacturing marks instead of knowledge.
We cannot dream of greatness on a hollow foundation. Reform is no longer a luxury; it is a necessity for survival. It must begin at the place where the damage first takes root: inside the examination hall, where silence once symbolised integrity but now signals something lost. The authors can be reached at essarbhat22@gmail.com umairulumar77@gmail.com