Last
week, various colleges coming under Delhi University, announced their
cut off marks percentages for undergraduate courses, which are even
100% for top rank colleges. After reading about these, I realised
one thing. If I had born sixty years later than I actually did, I had
absolutely no hope whatsoever, of getting admission to any college
and I would have had to remain satisfied with my matriculation
certificate.
I
passed my school leaving or matriculation examination, getting
overall 67% marks. Everyone had congratulated me after having secured
a first class (above 60%) in the examination and assured me that now
way was absolutely clear for me for further education. Armed with my
school leaving examination and original marks list, I cycled to the
topmost ranked college of those days in my hometown Pune. I filled an
application form and handed it over to a clerk sitting in an old
office, who looked at my papers, signed on them and gave them back to
me and told me to pay the fees which included entrance fees, Library
plus Laboratory fees and tuition fees; nothing else: the total coming
to sixty odd Rupees; to the cashier. I had collected from my mother
earlier in the morning, a brand new hundred Rupee note and had kept
it securely with me as it was lots of money in those days. I took out
the note and gave it to the cashier, who gave me a receipt, returned
the balance amount and told me to attend college on 20th
June.
That
was it! My entire admission process to get entry into the college was
over in about 15 or 20 minutes. There was no cut off list and
therefore no anxiety or tension. I am wondering, what would I have
done with that kind of marks today, with Delhi's top colleges
announcing a cut off percentages of 100%. It is obvious that there
was not the slightest chance for me to get admission in any college
with my marks. Forget a degree course, I was not qualified even for a
diploma course.
I had
a similar experience later, when I was applying for an Engineering
college admission. I had secured 62% marks and a first class in my
previous examination. Encouraged by my marks, my father had suggested
that I apply to the top institutes, which admitted students from all
over India. At that time there were five such institutes. The IIT's
at Mumbai, Khargapur near Kolkata, Kanpur and Madras besides the
oldest premier institute, IISc or Indian Institute of Science at
Bengaluru. I was neither keen to go to north India nor Madras,
because the weather there is quite lousy and applied to Mumbai's I I
T and Bengaluru I I Sc.
After
a few weeks, I received admission letter from I I Sc first and since
it was my first choice any way, I decided to join it. The whole
process was so simple and straight forward. As I understand today,
the process of getting admission to all India Institutes is extremely
complicated and tough. After completing your regular college
examination, you have to appear for a Joint Entrance Examination. A
rank list is prepared along with the results and only a certain
number of top ranking students are selected for appearing for another
examination, known as Advanced Joint Entrance Examination. If you get
a good rank in this, only then you have a chance of getting admitted
to a top Institute.
I am
really puzzled with all this. Is the new system of cut offs and
entrance examinations, better than the earlier system, where your
school leaving examination or College examination marks used to
suffice. If one had reasonably good marks in school or college
examinations, that was usually enough to secure an admission. There
is something very sad and ominous about these cut offs of present.
There
is another question in my mind. If my 67% marks at the matriculation
and 62% marks for Engineering admission were considered good enough
those days to get me further admissions to top ranking teaching
Institutes, why is it, that a boy or a girl getting 99% marks today,
has no hopes of making it to a top college. I can vouch that no
one-that means absolutely no one- ever secured 100% or even 90%
marks, except for subjects like Mathematics and Statistics, in my
school and college days. How is it possible that today's kids can
score 100% marks in humanities and languages also? Are the kids over
the years have become super intelligent or something is rotten in the
education system itself. I have a feeling that the latter possibility
is more likely to be probable. There is something seriously wrong
with our education courses and the way we train our students so that
they can get these kind of marks.
I know
nothing about the education regime of today. Yet I have a feeling
that some kind of cancerous tumor is slowly engulfing and consuming
our education regime. It has to do something with the system of
public and private educational institutes. Public institutes are
aided by the Government and education there is quite affordable. The
unaided private institutes are prohibitively expensive and the
promoters of these institutes appear to be doing rather very well. Is
our educational regime of today is so adjusted that most of the good
students, unable to score those impossible cut off percentages, are
forced to join these private institutes after paying enormous fees
which they can not afford ? I do not know!
5th
July 2014
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