State of education in India is in a deep mess
While the cut-offs to gain admission to prestigious colleges in the country have touched the astronomical high of close to 100 per cent, the international rankings of higher education institutions of the country have seen a steady decline. The two are difficult to reconcile. After all, if brilliant students scoring 99 per cent and more are entering the best higher educational institutes, then surely the levels of those institutes too must go high. But not even the Indian Institutes of Technology or the Indian Institutes of Management or the country's best medical colleges, which are the most-showcased professional institutes to which many of the high-scoring students seek admission after school and college, rank among the best 200 globally.
There are many reasons for that, and we need not go into them here. Managements of the IITs, the IIMs, the most reputed medical colleges such as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, and the Government, will be aware of those reasons, and one should hope that they will collectively find a way out to put our colleges in the global list. It would be a pity if the best academic brains from the student community are given less than what they deserve as they make it to the prestigious institutes after undergoing a rigorous selection process.
It can be argued that we needn't be too worried about global rankings, but such rankings do impact the career graph of students, especially when they need to go abroad for higher education or employment. The problem does not, however, end here. There is also a deep difference between the high cut-offs and the quality of education that is being imparted in our primary and secondary schools.
The annual state of education reports that the non-governmental organisation, Pratham, releases, has consistently shown a decline in the levels of education imparted to and imbibed by students at the school level. In many villages across the country, neither the teachers nor the students are equipped for the levels they have somehow reached. Seventh-standard students, for instance, have been found to be deficient in tackling fifth-standard level subjects. The same holds true for teachers.
Given these realities, it is possible, though it may not be true for all students, that the high scores which are being registered, are a result of three things: The flagrant copying that many examination centres are disreputed for; the over-generous marking by copy examiners; and, the flourishing of coaching institutes which seek to train students to crack papers that come in a form that is anticipated with near perfection (the reasons for that need not be gone into here). It is possible that, if these issues are effectively tackled, it can lead to realistic percentages and compel institutes of learning to lower their fantastical cut-offs.
There was a time when students who scored 60 per cent or more were considered good; the 70-plus per cent ones were brilliant. A student securing these marks today is treated as just average and has absolutely no chance of entering a ‘good' college or university. While our educational standards have to be high, the bar should be kept at a realistic level so that it absorbs not only the best but also potentially the best.