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Scoring less than 95% won’t take you anywhere, anymore.
Scoring 90% is not enough to get you a good college anymore. 98% is the new goal.
Cut-throat competition between students is increasing the pressure instead of motivating them to study.
90,000 students scored more than 90% in aggregate in the CBSE Class XII results announced on Saturday. Over 14,800 of them breaking the 95% benchmark. The point to be noticed here is that, if we compare the past 10 years with today, the 90% and above scorers have gone up from 8,111 in 2007 to 89,030 this year, with a similar rise in the club of 95% scorers from 384 in 2008 to 14,838 this year. But amongst the period of escalating aggregates, the overall pass percentage has risen by only 1.55%.
How would you explain this inflation if not unhealthy competition? The race to secure a seat in a good college disconnects the students from the world and makes them concentrate only on studies. But even after scoring in 90s, they are unable to get seats in their desired colleges Why?
Ashok Kumar Ganguly, former CBSE chairman remarked: "I feel this is inflation that has an adverse effect and promotes an unhealthy competition among school boards. The state boards have also started inflating marks." He said that he had enquired from CBSE officials why the aggregates were showing a spike, but they did not have an answer.
"The CBSE think tank is not looking at an important aspect," Ganguly pointed out. "If a student scores 91% or 92% in aggregate and yet cannot secure a seat in an institution in Delhi, where are we heading?"
Vineet Joshi, another former chairman of CBSE, said scoring high marks might not be an issue so long as the evaluation process was fine. "The board's evaluation process assesses how well a student knows the curriculum," he said. "If the evaluation is done properly, there is no harm in the students getting high marks."
Even the principals and teachers of schools felt that the school education had changed. Some feel that the pressure on students have made them excel in the art of answering correctly while some say that the subjects that students choose are mostly practical subjects which help them get good marks.
Ashok Pandey, principal of Ahlcon International, Mayur Vihar, said: "There are practicals even in accountancy, business studies, history and sociology now. By and large, the structure of the question papers is such that it facilitates high scoring."
The high percentages pushing admission cut-off levels in colleges to ridiculous levels, as Ganguly said, "is a multipronged strategy that looks at proper evaluation with regard to inflation of marks".