Minimum Learning Program in School

Posted on November 3, 2011 in Education | 3 comments

Our school has introduced a new program named “Minimum Learning Program”, in which teachers basically give you the questions that would come in the Unit Test (weekly tests, not the term-end exams) which could help you get get you the passing marks. This program is already in effect and in my opinion, this system is flawed from the bottom up.

  1. This program would encourage students to just learn the things that would come in the UT to help them pass. This means that they won’t actually try to study anything more than that, leaving them with half-learned concepts or even quarter-learned concepts. They wouldn’t actually read the book, but just skim through the topics. Even though it might help them achieve short term results and improve the school’s Xth class result, it won’t help them in their entire life for sure!
  2. Some students might still not even learn that portion and just cram up the answer of those question. I know many like this. This is definitely a setback as it removes the “learning” word from the program’s name itself.
  3. Going back to the history of the start of exams, they were basically made to compare the students’ ability. Forcefully passing them is illogical. With this program in effect, logically, students could just only be compared based on the questions that the teachers didn’t give them before the test.

At the end, I would just like to say that this is not a “Minimum Learning Program”, but a “Minimum Scoring Program”.

Update: This post was written on the basis of as-before-told and as-before-done, which was just the beginning of the program. Now, instead of questions and instead of everyone, only the special students would be given very short notes from the whole chapter.

3 Comments

  1. Suresh Kumar | November 3, 2011 at 11:41 pm

    It does not look good to me also, because students would choose the easy way out and this would hamper their path for holistic growth and deep knowledge of the subject.
    But if schools have started this there must be some positive reasons why don’t you try to find them out.

  2. Nithil Bansal | November 4, 2011 at 3:44 pm

    Discrimination for those who study, not the correct way to help.

  3. Yashasvini | November 9, 2011 at 6:41 pm

    The basic point of this program is to help people who are failing in a particular subject to at least pass. Yes, this would not impart pure knowledge to people but it is a way to get the weaker students to find a path where they can get started on their studies. If you only know where you can start from, it would help you to move ahead.
    If we look from the point of a weaker student it would help them. It would sure look “discriminating” against the average and bright ones but the weaker section needs to be helped. This is just like a “reservation” we have for the ST’s and OBC’s in the government. But I still feel that these notes should be given to the entire class and not just the weak student.

    This was, of course purely my opinion on the topic, everyone sees it in a different light.