Preamble:
National Level Examinations have come to stay not only for medical but also for arts, science, engineering, design, etc. While some disciplines really test the aptitude of the students for a that discipline, many act as just a screening test. The current form of JEE is one such over which IITs conduct ‘Advanced JEE” for those who qualify in JEE. The most sought after are medical and engineering and many governments tried to put in a common test to nullify the differences in content and learning, mark inflation, route learning and alleged unethical practices in some state board examinations. Now every major branch (Medicine, Engineering, Architecture, Law, Design, etc.). The National Education Policy proposes to abolish the specific selection of branches till higher-secondary education so that all will be eligible for all courses. Yet, the efforts to implement the same remains elusive but NEP is taken at full level at the higher education levels. The aim of this article is to analyse the current status especially the entrance examinations after higher secondary examination that usually test the subjects of higher secondary boards rather than the aptitude. Most foreign standardisation tests aim to assess the ability of learning whereas most Indian Entrances assess what the student has learned.
History:
The credit for introducing the entrance examinations goes to University of Calcutta established in 1857. Post independence, many Universities like Delhi University and Banaras Hindu University had their own examinations and selection process. With the IIT act in 1960, came the engineering entrance examinations. When the engineering studies become the most sought after, the applications increased multifold leading the evolution of All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) in 2002 but it evolved into JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) for all central engineering Institutes with an additional “advanced examination” for entry into the IITs. Many private Engineering Institutes also jumped into this making the aspirants to undergo multiple tests across the nation. For admission into central Universities, CUCET in 2010 came into existence as optional which transformed into CUET in 2021 mandatory for all central Universities or Institutes. This difficulty of appearing in multiple exams was mitigated in medical education by the introduction of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) in 2016 as one test for all branches of medical undergraduate education. While NEET has the legal status as nationally mandated, others remain optional for many state Universities and the degree of adoption mostly depending on political dynamics.
The options:
If we look at the entrance examinations technically, they aim to test the knowledge, to some extent application of the knowledge with a modicum of learning aptitude. Another dimension is the multiple slots of the same examinations with the normalisation focussing on the percentile rather than the raw score following the model of many foreign aptitude tests. Even though, the question papers are supposed to be normalised there exists significant difference in the raw score and even the percentile becomes dubious whenever there are not enough candidates in a subject for a test like CUET.
The rationale:
While the national level entrance examinations do offer standardisation across the boards, many coaching Institutes beat the integrity of the tests by preparing students arduously for only the entrance examination. The performance in 12 years of board examinations has become defunct. Many are prepared solely for this entrance examination right from very young age ignoring the school system. Such single-objective coaching prevented the normal social development of children. Additionally, many economically challenged cannot afford such coaching and brilliant minds are lost because of the lack of access and use of a central syllabus so different from state boards.
An alternative:
To level the field, most applicants go through schooling either to a board-affiliated or home-schooled. The 12 years of education should be the major criterion instead of a single appearance. All boards should declare the subject wise and overall percentile in the mark sheets along with the raw scores. The admission in different Institutes may happen through these percentiles across the boards, subjects and quota classifications. Such an attempt will give a chance to the underprivileged to undergo higher education in nationally renowned Institutes.
Author: G.Kalaichelvan, Ph.D.,
Opinions expressed solely belong to the author.