“Education in school is rote learning and most of the time the children do not know what they have written in their examinations. There is no scope for original thinking. We are intervening in our small way with this test which encourages children to perform experiments, discuss scientific aspects and refer to various sources before developing their answers,” said Ravindra Soman, secretary, Pune branch of Lok Vidnyan Sanghatana, at a press conference in the city recently.

In 1994, lack of manpower put a spanner on the group’s efforts to continue with this test. It was also a time for introspection for the group as parents and took towards dictating answers to their wards. “Instead of allowing the children to learn on their own, a lot of teachers and parents indulged in cheating,” said S N Guttikar, general secretary of the group. The sanghatana expects “large scale dictation” this year as well, but has appealed to the “general good sense” of the parents.

The last time the test was conducted, the group received nearly 15,000 responses. This time the response could be in lakh, they said.

However, they clearly distinguished themselves from other competitive exams. “This is not a competition in the traditional sense,” said Guttikar. While there will be prizes awarded to the participants, the group has said that they want to assess the papers submitted by the children qualitatively, not quantitatively.