Kai Ting (5) & Roxanne (12) 4B

Examinations - a core component in the education system, and the monster in many students' lives. Some might say that exams are beneficial in measuring one's strengths and weaknesses, allowing improvement and learning from mistakes, with the regulation providing structure for evaluation of the abilities of both students and teachers. But behind this idealism, what benefits do exams truly beget? No two people are the same, and different people have different interests and purposes in life. As Sir Ken Robinson had said: education, in a way, dislocates very many people from their natural talents. Human resources are like natural resources; buried deep, not found on the surface, and you have to create the circumstances for them to surface. Education is supposed to be one such platform, yet it does not do as such, instead forcing them into moulds that they may or may not fit in, restricting them within the boundaries of education, limiting their potential and their chances of finding their true calling. Examinations are simply one enforcement of this flawed system, and this regimentation and standardization is but trying to measure different beings with the same marker, and simply test students in stoic memorisation as opposed to critical thinking and creativity, and perhaps the spending power of parents in their ability to pay for tuition. Hence, examinations are a curse.