<b>Anjuli Bhargava:</b> Cutting out cut-offs

I recently met the head of Pearson VUE in India and he put an idea into my head that got me thinking. Why do we - universities such as Delhi, Mumbai and several other institutions around the country - give the kind of importance we do to cut-offs?

After all, these cut-offs are based on one set of examinations taken on certain days, at a certain time of the year under extreme pressure as most students and parents will testify. A bright student could end up performing poorly for all kinds of extraneous reasons, the simplest of which are illness or problems at home. How much credence can we give to such results? Isn't it time we looked for some other, more holistic and sensible way to evaluate students?
 

This brings me to a second issue. Even if we assume that cut-offs are the only way to go, how on earth do we equate a student with, say, 95 per cent marks from the Bihar or the Jharkhand board to a student with the same percentage of marks from the Delhi, Maharashtra or West Bengal board? Don't we need to account for the differences in the quality of education imparted and how demanding a particular board might be?

The variance, as I recently learnt, is quite shocking. My former driver's son took his board exams after Class X from Bihar and turned up here with his certificates. The boy had performed averagely and wanted admission to a school in Delhi or Haryana. I went with him to four schools in Delhi and Gurgaon, including two Kendriya Vidyalayas, where the principals agreed to meet me. While two of the schools tested his level of knowledge, in two cases a short 15-minute chat was enough for the school to assess his capabilities, which were simply not on a par with a student with similar marks at their school. He couldn't speak much English, barring the basics, so an English medium school was out of the question. His math skills were nowhere near Delhi levels. The advice we consistently got was that we should ask him to repeat Grade 9 and 10 before he went any further.

I asked senior Delhi University (DU) officials about this state- and board-wise disparity and they agreed. They too see the variance. Although many colleges assess and place on a par an out-of-Delhi student with one who has passed from the CBSE or the ICSE board, there is a stark difference in the breadth and depth of knowledge in most cases. They point out that many students from other states make up in hunger what they lack in grounding. But at times the gap is yawning and perceptible no matter how hard the student tries to bridge it.

Although the cut-off system is far from ideal, in the absence of a substitute, it is all there is. Replacing cut-offs with an entrance test will increase the pressure on students and probably make things worse (another JEE-type examination with all its ills). An interview-based assessment is of course subjective, open to discretion and allegations of unfair treatment. Some kind of a system that assesses the student's past performance, extra-curricular achievements, board results and an interview might be the long-term answer but who wants to complicates matters?

There is, however, a silver lining. Whether the authorities want to go into the matter or not, they might soon be forced to. With cut-offs now approaching 100 per cent in many subjects, how will you distinguish any two students with 100 per cent marks?

Of course, there is a larger problem at play here. Why at all should a student with 95 per cent marks from the Bihar board be forced to come to Delhi to apply for admission? DU, Mumbai and other universities that are considered superior will have limited seats no matter what. Whatever system of admission one devises, the fact is some students will make it and others won't. So the larger solution is to ensure that students from the states are not forced to come to these cities looking for better quality education.

The idea of this column is not to provide all the answers (I don't claim to be any kind of an expert) but to discuss some new ideas. If you have a solution or think you have one, do write in.