What was the last thing you graded or rated? You last purchase off Amazon or the last Pizza delivery? You see where I am going with this. What do these grades and ratings do? They decide which `thing` is better than the other, which `thing` is most liked by majority of the people, which `thing` is worth spending your money on based on multiple recommendations. Grades and ratings are certainly helpful when it comes to a commodity. You decide to purchase a shoe online, but it’s really a tough call, because with shoes you need comfort as the deciding factor, the touch and feel is important. However, when hundreds of people have rated the shoe to be a 4.5/5 stars in comfort, you trust their opinion and buy the shoe online.
Ok how about Uber rating. Why is that necessary? Don’t forget that the Uber driver is rating you too although it may never really do much for you, but the rating you end up giving the uber driver helps him make money. The better he gets rated, the more he gets incentivised. If I would ask an Uber driver are grades and ratings important, he will definitely say Yes . As they eventually end up getting money. The best rated drivers are often paid more and this is how they distinguish themselves in their job. If I ask you would you like being rated by your Uber driver, are you going to be happy about it? Are you getting better cars and better discounts because you have a 5 star rating or is it just enough to go on your social media profiles for fun? The point I am trying to make here is that grades are good and grades are fun when there is some kind of tangible benefit associated with them, otherwise they are just pointless. It’s almost like making an unnecessary judgement.
Do grades really matter in schools and universities? There is no correct answer to this. In some cases like in certain milestones; well then yes, grades maybe important. Does this mean they are important in every single test your child takes? Probably not. Let us understand the reason why there is a grading system in place from the point of view of an educational institution. A school has a certain grading system too, like I mentioned earlier about a commodity. How do you know that this is the best school for your child? It’s based on how the school has been graded. The school is graded on the kind of education a child has received, how many students have earned merits and accolades from that particular school. Hence, the school has to grade the students to have a record of how many A graded students the school produces every single year. How many students end up getting into the best Universities? Without these grades it would be impossible to understand the difference between the quality of education provided by different institutions. The school also wants to ensure the students stay motivated enough and that is done by grading them. The educational systems across the globe believe that a healthy competition needs to be maintained and the students are supposed to be pushed to work harder. Grading allows the institution to ensure that the students will work hard enough or maybe strive to get better at studies. This grading system maybe essential when it comes to competitive exams which decide the students eligibility to get into a professional course or a university for higher studies.
From a student’s point of view and also analysing it practically, are grades really important?
So, if there are twenty students in a GCSE year 11 class and say two of them receive an A+, twelve of them a C and the rest of them a B. Now the students who have an A or a B, might feel a little good about themselves and feel a certain sense of achievement. They may or may not necessarily try to study harder the next time or try to maintain their grades going ahead. The students who have a C have still passed the test and may be motivated to study harder the next time or may just be OK with what they did. Did grading them make any difference? Ok so if someone gets a D and fails the test may need to cover up their credits, but that’s about it. Now not all students are cool about being graded. Some may feel happy, some may feel indifferent while the rest may end up feeling demotivated because these grades are not literally guaranteeing a good career or a successful life, so why is this additional stress being added? Not to be surprised. Parents often think of these grades from Year 6 onwards.
Students who are not great at academic subjects may be great at some extracurricular activities and still will end up getting a university of their choice. They still have chances at a good career and a successful life so why are these grades given any value? Competitive exams have become a must. They are not necessarily the deciding factors for most professional courses so why can`t the grading system be eliminated altogether? The system has been in place for a couple of decades now, so it may not be easy to turn it around in a day, but slowly and steadily education should become just about what it is- Learning and equal opportunity. The world outside of the educational institution is not fair as it is, but the educational system can be fair.
Going back to the example of an Uber driver. Whether or not the Uber driver got an A in school, he still has to ensure that he gets a 5 star rating. A surgeon still has to ensure that he makes no mistakes in his surgery. A software engineer still has to ensure that there are no bugs in his creation. An actor still has to ensure that he has understood the script, he has to strive to get the movie the desired IMDB rating. The grades these professionals received during their education will not really play a role in their professional success, so why not make education the priority in schools and let the grades remain only for the professionals to compete on. What do you think?