Srinagar, Sept. 26 -- By Dr. Mushtaq Rather

A child can spend months learning, questioning, making mistakes and finding better ways to solve a problem, only to have that experience reduced to a few numbers on a report card.

A three-hour paper can then become the main evidence used to judge what the child knows and where the child goes next.

That habit has defined classrooms for years. Teachers know what the examination will ask, so teaching tends to follow the same path. Students learn what is likely to appear on the paper. Memory becomes the safest investment because memory is what the system has traditionally rewarded.

But the problem goes deeper than marks.

Traditional examinations largely test remembering and, to some extent, und...