Character Certificate Misunderstood and Abused

Schools hold Character Certificate of a child as hostage and demand ransom of good discipline from them. It's also used as the ultimate weapon of punishment. It's a confidential document that the child gets to see only when he leaves the school. Therefore, Character Certificate is misunderstood and abused. But the true intention of this life defining document was never spelled out and therefore this heavy paper weighed very light so far. It's now coming into the light with Educating for GNH spirit, it may take time but the greatest achievement is in having it started.
Because we were brought up in such environment we look at our children through the same belief that a child is worth his scores in his marksheet. The toppers are praised in school and at home, they are favorites of teachers and parents. Colleges want them, job markets await them. Of course, these children do deserve the massive attention they are receiving, there is no way we can afford to compromise that but we must realize that we are just looking at the academic intelligence and worse using that to measure children's worth.
His majesty always stressed on "Emotional Intelligence" when talking to children. Emotional Intelligence is not something we can find among high marks alone. Emotional Intelligence defines a good human being but by giving absolute importance to marksheet we are totally disregarding the true worth of our children. Character certificate, if used correctly, can not only acknowledge those emotionally intelligent kids but also groom the normal children into achieving that goodness.
Character Certificates contains 10 Personal Qualities, which defines an emotionally intelligent child.

1. Leadership Quality
2. Punctuality
3. Honesty & Integrity
4. Willingness to Adapt to Rules
5. Respect for others
6. Civic Sense
7. Creativity
8. Participation in activities
9. Work Ethics
10. Conduct

We have always seen and used this document but we have never known it well. Children should see and understand every personal quality with specified criteria (See the sample Rubrics) and given opportunity and motivation to build on those qualities.

Mark Sheet	Character Certificate
Measures academic performance Identifies academically sound children Guarantees a good Job	Measures Human values Identifies good human being Guarantees a good Life

The most painful question is, why invest so much in something that no one will even look at? That is something Educating for GNH going to change eventually, one day Marksheet and Character Certificate will weigh the same. This is a big change in system and mentality that requires lots of time to set up. The best place to begin is the schools. Schools can already start investing in human values in their little ways.

Current status of Character Certificate	Expected Role of Character Certificate
It’s a confidential document It’s marked once in a year It’s marked at the end of the year It threatens the children It’s used as a weapon Only bad character certificate has effect on the child’s career, good certificate go unnoticed. It's a summative assessment.	It should be a mirror to the child on daily basis It should be marked several times in a year It should be marked in the beginning, middle and end of the year to motivate. It should motivate children It should be used as a guiding tool Good Character certificates should  be given due importance It should be Formative assessment.

With strong system in place Character Certificate can redefine that way human world functions; we will not only have the most intelligent people governing us but also the good human beings. Intelligence alone is only capable of making great stuffs like nuclear weapons, it takes emotional intelligence to build homes and make live saving drugs. 

This is what intelligence without emotion does!