Editorial: Of Board Exams and Entrance Tests

It may be shocking to a lobby of intellectuals, students and people to hear from Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal that students need to score somewhere between 80 to 85 per cent to be eligible to take IIT-JEE. Though Sibal noted that the step is aimed at ensuring that students take their Class XII seriously and at checking the growth of IIT entrance coaching centres thriving across the country, it is not in line with the spirit with which he first peddled for and then went ahead with scrapping class tenth board exams. It’s like easing children off till tenth and then putting pressure on them assudden, dual pressure – that of class twelfth exams and an entrance test. Of course, many would argue as to why Sibal did away with the tenth board exams when he was concerned that students take class twelfth exams more seriously than they do now.

The very fact that students attend more to IIT preparation than their board exams explains that the syllabi, pattern of the two exams are markedly different. Is it a hard and fast necessity to demand two markedly distinct levels of intellectual requirement from the same student at a time, does it serve any academic purpose?

Things like scrapping of a board exams, introducing grade system, checking growth of coaching centres, making students attend to studies sincerely etc are just a drop in the ocean in a country starved of education and examination reforms and plagued by money-centric, success-chasing mentality. On the face of it, Sibal’s two attempts that should be in line with each-other are contradictory. Scrapping of class tenth board exams is justifiable on the ground of easing off peer pressure on students, brining in them a greater sense of equality (with less sharper division of mindless, illogical things like meritorious, average, mediocre etc) and encouraging among students a pressure-free efforts toward academic or scholastic excellence. Suddenly, all these things don’t come into scene when we think about students requiring somewhere between 80 to 85 per cent marks to be able to even take IIT-JEE exams. Isn’t this, despite all good intentions of our minister, restricting the avenues of growth for those who have scored less in class twelfth exams and limiting it to so-called academically, scholastically elite class? It’ll be a shameless practice of inequality by a state.

Students’ giving less weightage to their class twelfth studies, mindboggling growth of coaching centres, availability to repeated attempts to all and sundry are to the core of the problem. The very fact that students attend more to IIT preparation than their board exams explains that the syllabi, pattern of the two exams are markedly different. Is it a hard and fast necessity to demand two markedly distinct levels of intellectual requirement from the same student at a time, does it serve any academic purpose, or, may there be a better way to align these two in a way that preparation of one covers the requirements of other to a larger extent? And it is this marked difference wherein fits the role of thriving coaching centres. They teach what schools don’t. Financially well-offs avail of them, poor cann’t. Sibal is missing the basic point. It’s still doubtful that with his proposal turning into reality, growth of coaching centres will come to a standstill, or, both rich and poor students will be at par with each other.

More importantly, for any reason, you cannot take away someone’s right to take another shot at an exam, for he has previously scored low. It’s out and out injustice. Many students fail to chalk up an impressive score in an exam due to very different reasons, health problems at certain time, family tragedies, financial constraints etc.  Afterall, it’s efforts that count more in nation building, rather than  things as vague and controversial as our so-called academic merit.
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