The movie ‘3 Idiots’ taught me many things, but there’s one scene that keeps coming back to me – the one where Rancho advises his dean against making students sit for the class photograph in the order of their grades. “Sir, results should be not displayed at all,” Rancho says. “Why publicise somebody’s flaws? If your iron count is low, will the doctor prescribe a tonic or will he air your report on TV?”
With results now being posted online, we may be leaving the practice of displaying grades on public lists behind. However, our beloved schools misuse their exclusive access to the ‘School Results’ tab on the CBSE result site to use students as their brand ambassadors (without adequate compensation).
Commercialisation of Education Vs ‘Right to Privacy’
Private schools usually release the photographs and marks of their top scorers to the media. Few complain about this, choosing to revel in the attention instead. But the schooling system does not sensitise us to be critical of the system itself. We do not stop to wonder if our privacy has been violated in this gross commercialisation of education.
How many of us remember signing, or having a parent or guardian sign, a legal contract with our school, entitling it to use our private achievement data, photographs and names?
Louis Brandeis, an American jurist, in a celebrated judgement called the right to privacy “the right most valued by civilised men.” The protection of our photographs, names or other individual identity marks are covered under Personality Rights. In India they aren’t recognised per se, but are covered by the Right to Privacy under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, or through the right to publicity inferred from Article 19.
Morality of Publicising Academic Performance
The right to publicity as a form of the right of privacy was perhaps first recognised in India by the Supreme Court in R Raja Gopal vs State of Tamil Nadu. In the case, the court stated that “the first aspect of this right must be said to have been violated where, for example, a person’s name or likeness is used, without his consent”.
While there are strong laws that govern the issue, we need to be considerate of the moral principle too. Information about grades is personal to students. Children (through their guardians) should have the right to take the final call about whether their details can be made public.
Considering the deadly cut-offs of the Indian education system, any score – no matter how high – can become a cause of embarrassment to a student. And in further publicising it, the school may be responsible for causing the child to undergo stress, and maybe even depression.
The Ambiguity Surrounding Personality Rights
Legally, a person’s right to privacy includes the right to conceal personal information. The concept of Personality Rights ordinarily relates to celebrities or famous people. It is the right to control and profit from the commercial use of one's name, image, likeness, etc, and it prevents unauthorised appropriation of the same for commercial purposes.
Few Indian celebrities, like AR Rahman, Shah Rukh Khan, and Kajol have already registered their personal name as a trademark. Registration of personal names as trademark has meant that Personality Rights can be covered under Intellectual Property.
But there is ambiguity about the status of a ‘celebrity.’ In education, however, it is only high scorers who qualify for the label.
The students earn a reputation with their ‘hard work’, but they are denied any control of the commercial exploitation of said reputation. There is no rational justification for this. Especially when the dominant narrative of education revolves only around marks, private schools can reap good dividends by using names of the top scorers.
Coaching institutions in India have been careful in this regard. Most get their students to sign a contract legitimising publication of their details. The legal validity of it can, however, be contested.
Think of it, if you use the regular services of a company, would you still allow it to make you an object of its publicity? Would you like it to be known that you bought X company’s product and not Y's, and that your present weight is 75 kg after using their product?
The analogy is socially wrong for education, but aren’t our schools just franchise businesses of large corporations, or educational societies? At the very least, we should take full payment for the endorsement.
Publicising Promotes Unnecessary Competition
The fame that makes you lose your sanity is dangerous. We could humanise the examination system by denying schools the right to talk about toppers.
The CBSE website can only whisper the results, it is the schools that make them look uglier. Exam phobia is based on relativity of marks. If schools did not publish the results of the ‘best,’ we could probably change the narrative to better.
The mute acceptance of ‘toppers’ reaffirms my faith that they have no critical thinking skills or creative courage to rebel. They are docile and under-confident. They use the CBSE boards only to find self-worth and legitimacy. Revolution is indeed no dinner party.
(Akshat Tyagi is a 15-year-old entrepreneur and author from Delhi. His book ‘Naked Emperor Of Education: A product review of the education system’ is the first Indian student voice against the dehumanising model of schooling. He headed India's No 1 Teen LifeZine in the past. He writes for several online publications and is engaged in independent research.)
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