The Falling Standards of our Education System - Part 4 - Conclusion

In the first three parts under this topic, we have seen in detail, how engineering, medical and the arts & science courses have deteriorated in standards over the last decade - in terms of admissions in the engineering stream, quantity and high cost of seats in the medical stream and the serious lack of even mere passion among the students of arts and science.

In the final part, the one topic that remains to be discussed is the Tamil Nadu government's recent decision to not abide by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) norms for the minimum required percentage for engineering admissions. Here's the story:

In 2010, the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Mr.M.Karunandhi announced that, "the state government, in order to make available engineering course to all sections of the student community, has laid down the minimum qualifying marks as 50 percent for general category, 45 percent for backward classes, 40 percent for most backward classes and 35 percent for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes."[1]. In late January, the AICTE had laid down minimum eligibility for general category students at 50 percent and 45 percent for all other categories from the academic year 2011-2012[2]. In May 5, 2011 - barely a week before its humiliating defeat in the state legislature elections - Mr.Karunanidhi made it clear that the Tamil Nadu government will not abide by the AICTE regulations and has decided to continue its own norms formulated last year. [1]

This decision is shocking because by doing this, the Tamil Nadu government opposes the highest body for technical education in the nation. And the decision comes in the backdrop where the number of engineering seats have increased by 15 to 20 thousand seats since last year to 1,50,000 seats in the state. More than 51,000 BE/B.Tech seats were lying vacant for want of students in the academic year 2009-10[3]. Less than 10 students were admitted in three private colleges! It is very clear that parents and students did not have faith in the quality of education provided in many private institutions and they could have also stayed away due to prohibitive costs of engineering education.This scenario raises many questions regarding the above-mentioned decision of the Karunanidhi government:

1. If the seats had not been filled properly in 2009, should not the Karunanidhi government been more worried about how to improve the quality of education and minimizing the cost levied by the private engineering colleges so that the poor scheduled castes and tribes are benefited, rather than blindly decreasing the eligible percentage?

2. If an ST student could not score even a 35% in his 12th exams, in what reality could we expect her/him to score the required 50% (to clear the subjects) in an even more testing and tougher stream such as engineering?


3. On what basis did the Karunanidhi government arrive on the figures of 45%, 40%, 35% and 30% for BCs, MBCs, SCs and STs respectively, which seems more like a numerical series than numbers with any intelligent basis of assignment?

4. By reducing the eligible percentage, the number of eligible students increase. Is this move more indicative of the view of the previous government that it is more imperative to fill seats rather than do anything to improve the quality of education?

My point is, to emphasize that the last ruling party in Tamil Nadu did nothing much to improve the standards of education in the state; in fact, I would say that they only contributed to decrease it unbelievable lows. With a new government in place, if the following changes occur, it would help improving the standards of education:

1. Bring back the Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Exam (TNPCEE).

2. Follow the AICTE norms of minimum percentage for entrance exams.

3. Make the twelfth standard question papers more challenging and the corrections, more strict.

4. Enable career counseling and planning facilities to students in the final year of their schooling or if possible, during their 10th standard itself, to make students decide which path they would like to choose.

5. Appoint teachers to specifically train students in rural areas for exams like TNPCEE and AIEEE. This would stop the complaints from rural section that the presence of entrance exams favors only the urban students.

Let us hope for the best...


References:

[1]."TN rejects AICTE norms for engineering studies",
http://www.facenfacts.com/NewsDetails/8980/tn-rejects-aicte-norms-for-engineering-studies.htm

[2]. "Score 50% For Engineering: AICTE",
http://www.fullhyderabad.com/hyderabad-news/aicte-fixes-50-percent-marks-at-intermediate-to-study-engineering-3408

[3]. "Over 51,000 seats vacant in TN engineering colleges"
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-02-04/chennai/28133299_1_engineering-colleges-btech-seats-student-intake-strength

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