Even from the primary level, education as a whole is in a melting pot, not with regard to the curriculum alone but also with regard to the medium of education and its objectives. Sir, I would now refer to the question of examinations. Much has been said on whether there should be an oral test and what its place should be in deciding the merits of applicants. Sir, I feel compelled to say that the viva voce test is very necessary to select proper persons for the services. There is nothing sacrosanct about the writeen test. It depends, it is true, on the intellectual discipline that a person has gone through but that is not all for judging the merit of a person. The personality of an individual is many sided. Just as people have said that it is difficult to judge the worth of a person in a fifteen-minute (15to16) interview, I submit that it is equally difficult to judge the capacity or the efficiency of a person by the amount of crammed knowledge that he is able to put out. Sir, the state trading corporation came into existence three years ago when the opinion in the country was very much divided. There were many doubting elements who shouted and cried that the state was embarking on an adventure which should be the close preserve of private enterprise. All these people represented the world of vested interests, but the organisation was ushered in, in spite of their criticism, of their adverse reaction, in a healthy climiate of goodwill, because there were also many in the country who thought that such an organisation would be able to introduce a new healthy trend in our trade and commerce and that it would help us to build up our trade, international and national. So, Sir, we have this organisation for the last three or four years, and we have to look at the judge the career of this small baby which we have ushered into (5to10) the economy of our country. Within two or three months the national emergency had to be declared and during the emergency priorities had changed and we could not just effect this desired improvement at that time and we could not bring about this legislation.
