Aheli Moitra
Board examinations were just painful. It was like having a screwdriver wedge out an organ at a time, starting with the brain. For those weak in academics, like me, it was a bit more excruciating.
The preparation itself used to be full of torment. If you had not understood anything in school, or at the tuition class, you were left with having to rote the chronology of bonds and independence type stuff. That obviously never worked except for those rare gifted ones with an ability to get things without having to understand them. For the rest of us, the story began from the ‘Hence Proved’ part of the answer. Amidst an outcry for 95% and more, it was a task to even begin to prepare.
Then the exam itself came with its many sheets. Even before you could begin to scan the questions you had no answers to, but figure out what you could feign an answer for, the random student from another school next to you had already asked for a supplement. Oh the horror! Perhaps I should be planning an escape instead of trying to attempt this paper…A jailbreak!
After a few weeks of relief from the torture of having taken the exams, there was the fright of marks. The jailbreak should have been implemented by now. The humiliation of the semi lowest score is not an easy burden to carry.
All of us made it through that drudgery—some with glorious marks, others forever marked.
Yet over one billion children (UN estimate) across the world—57 million of them out of school—living in countries affected by conflict will never face the normal circumstances of crucial examinations. In 2013, an estimated 7 million children in the world were refugees and between 11,2 and 13,7 million children were displaced within their own country due to conflict, according to the UN Refugee Agency.
These are just the larger figures—the internally displaced children of corners like neighbouring Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (Assam) are not even on the radar. 700 of the Rengma Naga children from the region face the prospect of either being forever displaced, murdered if they go back home or recruited by one of the many armed groups in the North East region of India.
30 of them are writing their class 10 board examination this year under fear. They and their families were targeted in an attempt to wipe their existence out in December 2013. A part of this—burning books, uniforms, certificates and legal identity— amounts to ending education. While it is education that could give them a small chance of taking control of the situation at home, the prospect of a future has been brought to an end through the violence perpetrated against them.
The State has not only been unable to handle the situation but, criminally, it has been unwilling to do so.
Who, then, will give them hope? From where will they begin to attempt their examinations?
Suggestions may be emailed to moitramail@yahoo.com
