A silly fable.

Back in the 1980's the school I went to had a class on moral science. The teacher uses parables to get the students to see what morality is. The idea of using parables to get a point across is quite interesting. Aesop's fables are possibly the most popular literature of this kind. Well, I do have a point to get across and intend to use a fable to do so.

Kamal Education Promotion Board is a non-profit organization working to advance the cause of academic achievement amongst children living in the suburban areas of Chennai. The board would like to see the children in these areas achieve better scores in their exams. It is quite evident that improving the scores would allow the students access to elite schools and subjects of their choice in the future.

The board comes up with the following recommendations that it believes will allow it to achieve its goal.

1. Teachers will be held accountable for achieving the target score in select subjects. 70% in Physics, 80% in Maths, 90% in Chemistry.
2. The questions in exams should be clear. For instance, all questions should end with a "?". Questions should require elaborate answers. Multiple choice questions and fill-in-the-blanks type questions are to be avoided.
3. The students will be required to wear white uniforms with their report card (scores) printed on them to school.
4. It is desirable that the students achieve these scores without any "additional" classes. The Board should be notified if teachers deem it necessary to train specific students with additional classes.
5. Supplementary exams for students who did not do well are banned. Students must do well in the exams that are already in place.

These recommendations are then shared with the teachers and students printed in nice glossy paper. A bunch of kids were found looking at these papers, laughing and making paper planes out of them.

There you go! That's my fable. It it not very good. That is the point.

Replace the KEPB with management, improving student scores with improving an organization's or an individual's performance. Do you see similarities between the list mentioned above and some steps management in general takes to improve performance? Are you surprised that the kids (workers in this case) don't take it seriously? Would you be surprised if the kids don't score better?