Excellence in Vain

In recent degree college admissions, students with scores as high as 99 per cent had no hope of getting into some of the most prestigious institutes in the country. Youth Inc looks into how exams have made a mockery of our education system

Almost every student who appeared for a board exam or an entrance test this season did it right. No movies, no masti. No hanging out with friends or even visiting family. In fact, in most cases, the life of the entire family came to a standstill for that one year. The only words one heard were ‘preparation’, ‘scores’, ‘classes’, ‘exams’, ‘admission’ and ‘career’. And yet, even students who scored over 90 per cent were left high and dry due to the stratospherically high marks in the cut-off lists. This has left most students trapped in a dilemma. The first cut-off list at Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) in Delhi read 96.75 per cent. Other colleges were not far behind. It is a nationwide phenomenon.

Roughly, the number of students who scored an aggregate of 90 per cent and above in the class 12 board examinations has almost tripled from the same figure in 2008. The jump in number of students who scored above 95 per cent is even sharper. Does this mean that the graduating class of 2011 is just much brighter than their peers three years earlier? Certainly not. What then seems to be the reason? “It is not a usual, case, what we are going through is an astonishing degree of grade inflation,” informs a senior senate member at the University of Mumbai, “and it’s not helping. It is simply leading to serious distortions. At the top end of the range, the lines between the exceptionally intelligent students and those just one step below are fast blurring. On the lower end of range, it deludes students with limited abilities,” he adds. This admission season, the confusion, chaos and disappointments are all attributed to this confusion associated with grades. The policy makers had no respite to offer. All Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal could do was to call the cut-off irrational. There are no other measures to keep a check on the marks that have been generously distributed by the paper correctors. “The scores have definitely been inflated, and of course, the standards of correction have been very low,” says a disgruntled parent whose son cannot get into a college of his choice despite scoring 93.2 per cent. “How else can it be justified that a number of students scored 100 per cent at the class 10 SSC board exams in Mumbai,” he adds.

A number of parents and students are of the opinion that with the idea of distributing marks freely, errors have been overlooked or ignored. That is the only way, they feel, that students can score full marks in subjective papers like literature and the social sciences. And that too, in the purview of the strictness applied for paper correction in India. “What is the point of questioning now, when the scores are already out? The alarm should have gone off in our heads a long time ago,” says Dr Shubhada Joglekar, a retired faculty member from SNDT University, Mumbai who now teaches action research at many management institutes. However, this cannot be expected from an elitist education system like ours, where all the students want to rush only to the top few colleges of a long list of existing ones. Many students do not even want to consider any other option, regardless of their scores. “I know of this girl who scored 59 per cent and wanted to study Bachelor’s of Mass Media only at Jai Hind College in Mumbai,” says 18-year-old Dhruv Patel, who was prepared to study at any decent college where he secured admission.

Educationists and experts hold the system of education and examination responsible for literally pushing students very hard and compelling them to adapt to a system which is clearly faulty. They only have one shot at higher education – their class 12 marks or their entrance examination scores. Obviously students and their parents are going to treat the board exams as a do-or-die situation. “Everyone talks, but no one takes into account the uneven quality of schools across the nation. There are 41 state boards and then the central and international boards. Is there even a possibility that everyone gets a uniform education?” asks Dr Joglekar. Heads of institutions, parents, students and officials, everyone is worried, but no one has solutions. The chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, CNR Rao, wrote to Dr Manmohan Singh that there is a strong need for a common exam nationwide instead of the existing system. A nationwide exam is beginning to make more sense since board exams stress more on scores than knowledge. But the issue is getting murkier by the day since the increase in the number of seats available for degree college in no way match the increase in the number of students. It is clearly an irresolvable issue until our education system ceases to be just an exam system.

Volume 1 Issue 3