The education sector in West Bengal is beyond ideal solutions. The latest progressive idea waiting to be tested out in secondary schools under the West Bengal board is the introduction of grades. It seems to be a British import, in that it was mooted by the education minister in an interactive session with the British minister for schools. The government is worried that secondary education has become excessively ?examination-centric? and therefore pathologically competitive. A transition from marks to grades, already implemented in several other states and boards, is now being perceived as a means of countering this. The British minister has given evidence to the Bengali minister of how the system has worked in Britain ? mentioning, in the same breath, that Britain has a ?very good? student-teacher ratio of one teacher for every 18 students. And this is where the problem lies.

Secondary education in West Bengal has to cope with numbers, the magnitude of which is beyond the British imagination. The competitiveness stems from this actuality, rather than from the marking system per se. Too many students have to fight for severely limited resources in education, and as they grow older and move into higher education, the situation gets worse. Changing from marking to grading would mean changing the most basic paradigms by which students are evaluated and classified. Teachers and administrative staff still assume an equivalence between marks and grades ? with the right conversion table, ?grades? awarded by certain boards can be converted into universally classifiable ?marks?. This is proved, most alarmingly for some, during admissions to the higher secondary level, or when students are trying get into college or university. Most students from other boards ? which award grades and not marks ? have to face a degree of harassment and unfairness during this conversion process that exposes the discriminatory attitude graded students have to face in the state. It is deeply unfair to privilege a 60 per cent over a 59.5 per cent during admissions because of an administrative ?cut-off? point. But when thousands of candidates are competing for just a few seats, then such a principle of selection becomes inevitable. In such circumstances, having to tackle an entire ?class? of, say, A-graded students will only create greater chaos, unfairness and corruption. But such pragmatism is Bengal?s misfortune.