The Coronavirus pandemic has brought the lives of the students to a screeching halt all over the country, however, the governments and educational institutions (barring DU) have been somewhat accommodating towards the plight of students. In an attempt to provide respite to students, Central Seat Allocation Board (CSAB), yesterday, relaxed admission norms for getting admission into National Institute of Technology (NITs) and Centrally Funded Technical Institutions (CFTIs) by doing away with the requirement of minimum 75% marks in Class 12 board exams.
“Due to prevailing circumstances, Central Seat Allocation Board (CSAB) has decided to relax the eligibility criterion for admissions to NITs and other centrally funded technical institutions,” tweeted Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’.
📢Attention JEE Main aspirants!
For admissions in #NITs & other Centrally Funded Technical Institutions, apart from qualifying #JEE Main, the #eligibility is to secure a minimum of 75% marks in XII Board exams or rank among the top 20 percentile in their qualifying examinations.— Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank ( Modi Ka Parivar) (@DrRPNishank) July 23, 2020
Earlier, along with the performance in JEE-Mains, NITs used to demand either 75 percent marks in the board examinations or a place in the top 20 percentile of their respective boards.
The Indian Institute of Technology had much earlier announced that it was doing away with the 12th standard marks criteria and that it will only admit students based on their JEE-Advanced performance.
India’s premier engineering exam, the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)-Mains, which had been postponed twice, will now be held from September 1-6, amid strict protocols and the students can now focus fully on acing the entrance exam without worrying about the class 12th marks.
The decision by the HRD ministry should be applauded as using the class 12th board exam marks had become an obsolete parameter to gauge a student’s potential.
The curious case of absurdly high cut-offs
In the CBSE Class 12 result declared on July 13, a total of 1,57,934 students scored more than 90% marks. Of these, the number of students scoring 95% and above climbed up to reach 38,686 from 17,690 last year, reflecting an increase by a whopping 118.68 percent.
An alternate assessment scheme formulated by the (CBSE) is believed to have led to an all-time high pass percentage of the students this year.
With almost double the number of students scoring above 95 percent in the CBSE Board results this year, the Delhi University cut-offs are also likely to be high this year.
The Delhi University which majorly admits students based on their class 12th marks and is infamous for bringing outrageously high cut-offs will have their task cut out this time around.
When a student tries to change stream in DU, the cutoff percentage goes well beyond the 100 percent barrier by levying certain penalties and it shows nothing but the idiosyncrasies of the system. It’s high time that DU takes a leaf out of NITs and IITs approach and completely overhauls its policies by doing away with the class 12th mark policy.
Even the brightest of candidates find it difficult to get into DU because there are just too many people scoring near-perfect marks. The rat race that DU lets fester in the name of admissions is absurd, to say the least.
With cutoffs touching the near-impossible 100 marks, the question begets for the system “How much is enough?” and “How much should the students push?” The pandemic has given an opportunity to DU to solve this conundrum and we are hopeful that they make the necessary changes.