No Percentage: DNA 2nd July 2008

We must establish a National Education Board that oversees a common curriculum.
Education today is a tricky game. Standards have changed as have evaluation processes and the structures we have created have reacted more often than not in a naïve way.
There was a time when a person with 80 per cent marks in 12th standard could walk into an Economics Honours course in St Stephen’s College, Delhi quite easily. But, with that score today one may not be able to dream of entering even a B-grade college.
Shift to Mumbai where junior colleges admissions are the talking point, and the situation is quite weird. When one wants to take admission to a junior college in Mumbai, one needs to apply on the basis of the marks obtained in 10th standard.
There are three main Education Boards (besides the IB which will soon create more problems) which provide this gateways: ICSE, CBSE and SSC. The first two are national-level Boards while the last one is conducted by the Maharashtra government.
The snob value attached to ICSE is highest as one gets to learn Shakespeare and recite Keats while CBSE provides easy transfer options across the country. The SSC Board is localised but more socialist as it caters to even the lowest common denominator and those from a vernacular background who can take this examination.
However, all students want to join junior college either because their schools do not offer the plus two curriculum as the ICSE and CBSE Boards do or because it is just ‘cool’ to go to college and dispense with uniforms and discipline. The SSC route necessarily entails a shift to junior college.
The only apparent objective way to short-list candidates for such admission is through marks. One may recall that even in the 90s, there was a preference for SSC as the marking was perceived as more liberal. Naturally this put other students at a disadvantage.
The solution was to become even more liberal as a result of which one comes across students scoring as high as 98 per cent at the ICSE and CBSE examinations. This really means that in five subjects considered, a person has scored 490 out of 500. The student also ends up getting 99 in English and Hindi, which prima facie appears difficult to digest.
Once the ICSE Board became more liberal, the CBSE Board followed suit leading to a competitive inflationary trend in marks, the result of which is an SSC student at a disadvantage. The problem with State Boards is that they follow the policy of inclusion wherein those studying in government-run schools are put on a par with those who are in the so called convent schools.
The normalisation process invariably scales up one set of marks while scaling down another which averages out the overall level. Ultimately, the topper ends up with 93 per cent or 94 per cent and may still struggle to get on to the first list of a top-rated college where the cut-off mark is higher on account of applications from students of other Boards that mark more generously.
In fact, in case of the ICSE Board, the best five subjects are chosen while in the SSC Board, one is saddled with three languages where it is difficult to get to the nineties. With competition between Boards reaching absurd limits, the day may not be far of when students starts getting 100 per cent. How then will colleges choose their students? Draw lots? One way out is for colleges to have quotas for each board.
One can hear anguished cries at such a proposal considering that we already have a polarised education thanks to reservations. The other is to scale down marks across boards. The problem here is that with already so many normalisations, another one will actually distort a student’s true performance.
The need of the hour is a National Education Board where a common curriculum is taught. This way the regional biases in textbooks of a state would be eliminated. The regional language could be made to vary across states which students could be asked to pass but whose marks would not be included in the final score.
All students would have a common knowledge. The normalisation problem would still be there when students take exams in the vernacular medium. But, at least, course content would be the same.
However, such an approach would have implementation issues. What happens to the superstructure of the Boards and their staff when we have a common education system? How would teachers be re-trained for what they have to teach? And what happens to parents who wants their children to access systems like say the IB with its high-snob value? These are issues which can be gradually overcome.
To draw an analogy from the corporate world, M&As are part of life, and if they make systems more efficient, so be it. This would also be a great leveler in our society which is fragmented in different ways.