The Falling Standards of our Education System - Part 1 - The Pathetic Engineering Admissions

This morning I saw something in paper, that compelled me to write this post. In The Hindu, there was, "88,744 engineering application forms sold in State on first day" [1] and in the Times of India, there was "Over 2 lakh forms for engineering admissions will be sold (this year)" [2]. As an engineering student doing his final year, I believe there are some things that parents and students need to be aware of regarding engineering admissions.


In 2007, I joined Electronics & Communication Engineering in what is considered to be a good engineering college in Chennai - if not Tamil Nadu. At that time, my cut off was 190.75 and my rank was 6990. My batch was the first batch without an entrance exam for engineering admissions - the then newly formed Karunanidhi government thought that there was no need for entrance exams and that marks in 12th standard was more than sufficient to prove one's candidature for Engineering admissions. People were already telling me how unfortunate I was, because they thought that if I had written the entrance exams I could have got a much more competitive cut off and that in turn, I would have got into a top 5 college in Chennai.


Nevertheless, the engineering counselling got over and I managed to get a decent college in Chennai. But I was still very unhappy thinking over how much better it could have been had I managed to get a better college. But, as soon as the 12th standard results were out the next year, i.e, 2008, I realized how lucky I had been. Because, for the same cut off that I had scored, the ranks were in the range of 9000. Whether that is because the papers were easy that year or students were getting smarter, is debatable. But what I didn't know at that time was that the trend was to continue.

If one can look at the table on the left [3], one would realize how still the competition has grown in the last three years. Certainly, I was very lucky to have managed to get into the college that I did because to enter the same course that I did in my college, in the last year, students had to score a cut off of nearly 196 - almost a 5 mark increase in four years.


It does not need a genius to realize how stressful and demanding the course of one year can be on the poor 17 year olds doing 12th standard every year. The situation is so pathetic that

• Even a cut off of 199 is not sufficient to guarantee a seat in Anna  University for the candidates attending the counselling in 2011.
  

• Almost all the top 10 private engineering colleges see a 1 to 2 mark increase in cut off every passing year.

What caused these problems?

• An almost frightening craze for engineering seats, which has been the trend ever since early 2000s when the IT job boom started.
  
• The abolition of entrance exams in the year 2007 contributed a great deal to this tragic dependence on 12th standard marks alone, in turn leading to a very tight competition for the top marks.
  
• Alright, if the engineering entrance exams have been cancelled, then at least the 12th standard exam question papers should be made tougher. Was that at least done? Nope! In fact, by what I hear from my juniors, the biggest problem was the fact that the question papers were very easy.
  
• If the papers are easy, at least, should the correction of the same not be strict? Alas, seeing the number of centums increasing in Maths, Physics and Chemistry every passing year, one would be forced to believe that the corrections are also not getting any tougher.

What is the solution to this problem?

Either start conducting the engineering entrance exams once again or, if that is too much, at least make the questions papers for 12th exams tougher or if even that is too much, at least make the corrections tougher. It is the only way to save our system from becoming a completely hopeless one which rewards students for their memorizing and presentation skills rather than their techincal skills.

The engineering scenario is just an example and a variety of other factors cause the same problems to exist in Medical and even Arts & Science admissions. We will see them in parts 2 & 3 in this blog under the same title. Moreover, the government has done something very cheap to plummet the standards of education to new lows. We will discuss it in the final part of this title and conclude it.


References:
[1]. "Craze for engineering courses continues"
http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2024141.ece


[2]. "Over 2 lakh forms for engineering admissions will be sold"
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Over-2-lakh-forms-for-engineering-admissions-will-be-sold/articleshow/8377225.cms


[3]. "Tough competition for engineering seats"
http://www.thehindu.com/education/college-and-university/article2004518.ece