 | Guest Column SAMYAK SIBASISH |
Headlines such as Crazy Cut-offs, Student commits suicide after failing to get into her preferred college and Parents slam college authorities for sky-rocketing cut-offs are appearing almost regularly in the newspapers these days.
The disturbing trend is an aftermath of spiralling cut-offs for admission into different colleges for graduation and post-graduation programmes.
The so-called “meritorious” students securing more than 95 per cent marks in the Class XII board examinations are not being able to get into their preferred colleges and streams.
This was not the case, say, a decade ago, when a student, barely managing to secure 90 per cent marks, was termed as “outstanding” by the board, teachers, schools, parents and the society alike.
How has the situation reached at such a hopeless and uninspiring impasse? A closer look would reveal the lurid details? Kapil Sibal, Union HRD minister, has termed the impossible cut-offs as “irrational” and Vineet Joshi, chairman of the premier national examination body, CBSE, had admitted that Class XII scores are not the correct basis for selection for higher education. Marks have been inflated all across the country, even as testing standards have been gradually toned down.
As a result, the percentage of high-scoring students has been treading a rather steep, ever-upward curve since the past 5-6 years.
Some state boards, have also, lately, been extremely liberal and generous with their marking systems.
With such trends gradually gaining momentum, the situation reached at, today, was only foreseeable in the recent past. One of DU’s top and well-known colleges, SRCC, has listed its cut-off for non-commerce students, opting to pursue B. Comm as their graduation course, at a crazy 100 per cent.
Can anything ever get more ridiculous than this? Even for commerce students, the cut-off is placed at a rather awe-inspiring 97 per cent. Even all the other top colleges under DU such as Hindu College, Ramjas and LSR range their cut-offs anywhere between 92-96 per cent. This literally means that, a student securing 70 per cent of marks in his/her board examination would not find a college in any of the 85-odd colleges under DU. Students’ securing such high scores in their board examinations does not necessarily mean that students have become brighter over the years, but that, they now know, what exactly do they have to do to fetch them good marks in a highly objective test, which does not seek to test the skills and expertise of a candidate in any particular subject.
Some experts blame the examination system for pushing them to the wall and forcing them to adapt to a system which is clearly faulty, with a single-shot at higher education turning into a do-or-die situation.
Many experts today, suggest that the current system be replaced with a nation-wide common screening test and entrance examination to get admission in any government college in the country.
With this entire ruckus, the only ones who suffer the most are the students themselves. Counsellors point out the crisis in confidence among youngsters who fail miserably in coping with the stress and are driven to the point of suicide. It is a ticking time bomb. The number of school leavers seeking admission to undergraduate courses is placed at 13 million today.
And only about 9 per cent of the government accredited colleges fall in the A category. But in an elitist system of education, as prevalent in India, where everyone rushes to bag a seat in the top few colleges perpetuates a Brahminical tradition India has of chosen centres of excellence, model schools and innovation centres. This situation has arisen, despite the fact that very few Indians make it to the colleges. India has a Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of 11-13 per cent, compared to a developed country average of 45 per cent and developing country average of 36.5%. Kapil Sibal, recently announced that he plans to pull the GER to 30 per cent by 2020, which seems to be a distant dream as of now., given that the HRD ministry has failed miserably in implementing critical changes such as regularising the national curriculum and standardiSing the exams.
All of this has resulted in a textbook-centric learning method being adopted by students. Students are taught how to score, not to learn.
The style that needs to be adopted should stress more on synthesising, analysing, reasoning, comprehending, application and evaluation of subject matter rather than on rote learning, drill and repetition.
Whether it is grading or marks, or an aptitude test or a board exam, the bottom line is how students score. India’s education sector has to find a way out of this maze.
Changes in the education system have to range from devising a common entrance test like the US Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) which is a standardised higher education aptitude test, expand proven quality institutions, generate more research funding as well as create better facilities in private universities, nationalise curriculum and standardise tests which focus on continuous evaluation of students.
It is high time India starts adopting something on the lines of the US SAT, to ensure the holistic growth of quality education system.
