A 100 Percent Disaster

This is high drama season in the Univ of Delhi or DU as it is known in popular parlance. Having studied in Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC for short) as a student of Economics, I have experienced the “madness” of the admission process that Delhi Univ unleashes annually. Here is how it works:All students of the twelfth grade have to appear for a Board exam at the end of their school. This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment for the students and consequently the parents. Parents will keep warning their children that if they do not do well in “The Boards” then they are doomed to failure for the rest of their lives. This leads to massive amounts of performance anxiety among the children and inevitably has quite the reverse effect. In school the teachers will do their best to psyche the students and tell them horror stories of how some of the brightest students of the school in the past, did not heed their advice and consequently did badly in “The Board Exam” and were consequently “failures”. The belief among parents as well as teachers is that if the students are overwhelmed with fear, they will be insanely motivated to succeed at all costs. Imagine the psychological burden that the students carry with them and the guilt that they experience when they do not live up to the expectations of the parents, teachers and themselves. Yesterday’s newspaper reports “Student scores 85%, but hangs herself”. You may say that this is not the case of a student applying to Delhi Univ – but all I want to say is that this is not uncommon.Then comes the bigger question – What is the definition of doing well in “The Boards”? What is the percentage of marks one must secure to meet the expectations of parents and teachers? This where the debate gets murky. Over the years it has become socially defined as the student getting admission to the “Best Colleges” (click to see one such survey here) AND getting it in the subject of his/her choice. Missing either criteria is a cause for angst.The colleges affiliated to DU all prescribe the minimum marks that a student ought to have scored in the Board Examinations taken after the twelfth grade to determine which subject you can study in which college. Yes, the system actually works in this completely lop sided fashion. Ergo if you get the college of your choice then you may not get the subject that you wanted to pursue. Sometimes you get the subject of your choice but not in one of the colleges that belong to that exalted category. Every year the colleges raise the minimum cut off marks needed for a student to get accepted. It is clearly a relative ranking game. Top colleges get students who have scored the highest marks. Note that I do not say that the best colleges get the best students. When any product or service has more demand than supply, it creates the perception of a premium brand. That’s what colleges do every year. They nudge up the minimum marks criteria every year. The former President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam’s quote on the college website underscores the brand value of SRCC.

“Shri Ram College of Commerce has been serving educational needs in commerce and economics of industries for more than eight decades. This institution is indeed a brand institution for Commerce.”

Every year the inflation in marks needed to get admission to the colleges has been beating the pace of inflation in the economy. I have watched with horror students who have scored 94% break down and cry when I congratulated them on their brilliant academic performance. My friends son sobbed, “With these marks I will never get admission in X college and certainly not to study Y subject.” I cannot count the number of such tragic discussions I have had with students who have chosen to study a subject they are not passionate about simply because they got accepted in a brand name college.I suppose if there weren’t enough students getting these astronomical marks, the colleges would not have enough students to fill the classrooms. This year SRCC has announced that only those students who score a hundred percent (yes, that’s not a typo) will be given admission to pursue an undergraduate degree in Commerce.

Shri Ram College for Commerce (SRCC) and Lady Shri Ram College (LSR) have set impossible targets for some students in the first cut-off list this year, literally. SRCC requires a 100% best of four percentage from non-commerce students for admission to B.Com (honours). LSR has the same requirement for Commerce students who want admission in Psychology (Honours).

Excellence is desirable and so is perfection. But to me when a college classroom is full of students who have scored a hundred percent in a system that largely tests rote learning rather than creativity and independent thinking, we are likely to miss the really bright. So the answer to that may lie in the National Test Scheme that is currently being debated. This would be the equivalent of taking the GMAT or LSAT that tests aptitude.Inflation makes goods and services out of reach of many and creates a society that is not inclusive. This inflation of marks will lead to the automatic exclusion of many. Since Education is a state subject, the standards of testing varies for each state. When a college asks for such a cut off, it makes it impossible for  students from many others states to join such a college. After all not every State Board has enough students who score 100% . What would be fair is to have an aptitude test to help students find the best fit with the subject that they will pursue in College. Possibly to identify a range of subjects and the relative fit for that subject. The college should support these subject fits with career choice counselling that tells a student about the kind of career options possible after pursuing the said subject. I would call such a test Happiness Test.