Mandated without adequate debate and preparation in the trademark style of the BJP/NDA government, the inaugural Common University Entrance Test (CUET) 2022 — promulgated as the sole exam for admission into undergraduate programmes of the country’s 45 Central universities — has made a disastrous debut, writes Summiya Yasmeen
Mandated without adequate debate and preparation in the trademark style of the BJP/NDA government now mid-way through its second term in office at the Centre, the inaugural Common University Entrance Test (CUET) 2022 — promulgated on March 21 as the sole pan-India exam for admission into undergraduate programmes of the country’s 45 Central universities — has made a disastrous debut.
The first phase of the exam held on July 15-20 in 554 cities countrywide was marked by chaos and confusion. The initial batch of 800,000 class XII students who wrote the new common exam for entry into top-ranked, low fees universities established and managed by the Central government, experienced high stress and anxiety. Delay in issuance of admit cards and last minute switches of exam centres resulted in thousands of students reporting at wrong centres where they were not admitted. Angry students and parents staged protests outside several exam centres in Delhi NCR, accusing the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts CUET, of mismanagement and bungling.
It’s important to note that although mishandling of the inaugural CUET has made headline news, this common entrance test is for admission into 45 Central government varsities that constitute a small fraction (4.2 percent) of the country’s 1,055 universities. The remainder are relatively pricey private (39.7 percent) and low-ranked state government varsities. Therefore, well-funded Central government higher education institutions with superior infrastructure, high-quality faculty, well-maintained campuses and rock-bottom tuition and residence fees are the first choice of every higher-secondary student who has swotted for class XII school-leaving exams. And of the 45 Central universities, the most prized is Delhi University, particularly its routinely top-ranked undergrad colleges — St. Stephen’s, Miranda House, Sri Ram College of Commerce, among others.
The intentions and objectives behind introduction of CUET are noble. It is the response of the University Grants Commission (UGC) — the apex level body which supervises and administers higher education countrywide — to the stress experienced by class XII students hitherto obliged to write multiple entrance exams, and popular colleges notifying sky-high cut-off percentages for admission into some study programmes. “In National Education Policy 2020, it is advocated that we should remove the multiplicity of entrance tests and have one single test so that students do not have to go through the difficulties of writing multiple entrance tests… with CUET, students can now write one single entrance test,” says Prof. Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, a former professor at IIT-Delhi, vice chancellor of the top-ranked Jawaharlal Nehru University and incumbent chairperson of UGC. “Use of one entrance test for admissions in undergrad programmes has become a global phenomenon,” he adds.
Given the relatively high-quality education provided by well-funded Central government universities at ridiculously low price, no sooner was CUET promulgated, it became the country’s second-largest public exam with 1.49 million students registering for admission into undergrad programmes of 90 universities (UGC regulations permit private and state government universities to admit students on the basis of any national public exam scores). Therefore 12 state, 11 deemed and 19 private universities have opted to admit students on the basis of CUET scores and/or accord weightage to the new common entrance exam.
In this connection, it is pertinent to highlight that a common entrance exam for admission into undergrad — and often postgrad — education institutions is indeed a “global phenomenon”. In the US, most undergrad college admissions are on the basis of SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) score and in China scores in the dreaded gaokao determine admission into top-ranked and lesser ranked universities. In the UK, from which independent India inherited its education system, board exam grades and other performance indicators prescribed by UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admission Service) continue to determine undergrad college/university admission. The switch to CUET signals a departure from the British to the American admission process.
But although CUET admittedly eliminates the physical and mental stress of students having to write multiple university entrance tests, and streamlines the admission application and selection process, its hurried introduction without vigorous debate and ground preparation has opened up a pandora’s box of troubles.
“The hasty imposition of CUET upon students who haven’t yet recovered from the prolonged Covid lockdown shows that government has least empathy for children. Its announcement at the fag end of the academic year (2021-22) as they were preparing to write class XII board exams, added the burden of preparing for CUET at short notice. Now several lapses in conduct of the test have exposed that NTA was also unprepared to stage this massive pan-India exam. Unfortunately, a test which was supposed to alleviate student stress and anxiety has done the opposite,” says Sudha Acharya, chairperson of the Delhi-based National Progressive Schools’ Conference (NPSC) which has a membership of 400 private CBSE schools. According to Acharya, the hurried introduction of CUET without debate and deliberation with experienced educationists and educators, has dealt a body blow to the formal K-12 school system and will prove a bonanza for drill-and-skill coaching schools that prepare students for public exams. In particular, binning class XII board exam marks means that henceforth for admission into Central universities, high scores in the board exams have become irrelevant.
“By not according any weightage to the class XII board exam scores, CUET has severely devalued the high school education system. With CUET scores being the be all and end all for college admissions, higher secondary students may well abandon schools and flock to coaching centres to prep for CUET. Therefore to maintain the relevance of senior secondary education, NPSC recommends that NTA awards 50 percent weightage to class XII board exam scores when calculating CUET rank,” says Acharya, also principal of the CBSE-affiliated ITL Public School, Dwarka, Delhi.
Although the hasty introduction of CUET has endangered the formal higher-secondary school system, the multiplicity of India’s 35 school examination boards with differing syllabuses and assessment criteria necessitated a common entrance exam for undergrad admissions. Over the past decade in particular, there’s been mounting criticism of several state exam boards that prescribe less rigorous syllabuses than the pan-India CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) and CISCE (Council for Indian School Certificate Examination). Moreover, they are known to be too liberal in awarding marks/scores resulting in runaway grades inflation countrywide.
With millions of school-leavers averaging 95 percent-plus, students of several state boards such as UP and Bihar, notorious for exam malpractices, were widely perceived to be getting unfair advantage in undergraduate admissions. With all exam boards joining the grades inflation party, the country’s 39,931 undergraduate colleges — which are obliged to give equal weightage to certification of all examination boards — and in particular top-ranked colleges of Delhi University began specifying incrementally higher percentages as admission cut-offs. To the extent that some colleges such as the Shri Ram College of Commerce and Miranda House stipulated 100 percent cut-offs for specific study programmes.
“CUET levels the playing field for students across the country. Previously, because of wide divergence in marking practices of state examination boards, their students received unwarranted high scores giving them advantage in college admissions. Now all class XII students will write one common entrance examination. CUET will also put an end to the practice of top ranked colleges stipulating absurdly high admission cut-offs. That’s why in its very first year, not only all Central universities but also many state and private varsities have agreed to accept CUET scores for admission into their undergrad programmes,” says Prof. Geeta Bhatt, director of the Non-Collegiate Women’s Education Board, Delhi University.
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Yet even if the argument that CUET levels the playing field for all class XII school-leavers is accepted, some critics argue that it provides an unfair advantage to students of the country’s 27,176 CBSE-affiliated schools because the computer-based CUET comprising one language test, two domain-specific papers and a general test in the MCQ (multiple choice questions) format, is entirely based on the syllabus and textbooks of the Delhi-based National Council for Educational Research & Training (NCERT), followed by the small minority of CBSE schools. Students of the country’s 32 state education boards which devise their own syllabuses and textbooks will be at a relative disadvantage when writing CUET.
For some states, this is no small matter. After CUET was promulgated on March 21, the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly passed a resolution (April 11) demanding its withdrawal because CUET doesn’t provide “equal opportunity to students who have studied in varied state board syllabi across the country”.
CUET is a conspiracy to shut state board students out of Central universities, especially the elite colleges of Delhi University. With class XII board exam scores having become irrelevant for college admission and CUET solely based on NCERT textbooks — which state boards don’t follow — students of government and budget private schools affiliated with state exam boards have very little chance of getting high CUET scores. Unless of course they pay thousands of rupees to coaching centres to prep them for this exam. It’s tragic that a decision with nationwide ramifications was taken without consulting state governments, state boards and private schools. The education ministry should have first homogenised and equalised all state board syllabuses before implementing CUET. It’s a hurriedly implemented initiative which will highly benefit test prep coaching schools,” says Syed Shamael Ahmad, Patna-based president of the Private Schools and Children Welfare Association, which has a membership of 25,000 private — including budget private schools.
Tamil Nadu legislators are not the only critics of CUET. Since the common entrance test for Central universities was peremptorily announced on March 21, several organisations are protesting the “unfair advantage” it provides CBSE/private school students to the detriment of government school students, most of whom are unlikely to afford supplementary test prep coaching. On June 15, Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS), a students’ organisation, staged a massive anti-CUET protest in Delhi demanding government school students be awarded “deprivation marks” by Central universities to boost their CUET scores.
“All public universities should add 20 percent deprivation marks to CUET scores of government school applicants for undergrad admission; increase the number of seats and introduce evening classes to accommodate a larger number of students. There is a huge quality difference between private and government schools which places us at a disadvantage when writing CUET. How can parents who have enrolled their children in free-of-charge government schools afford coaching fees of Rs.30,000-50,000 per year? CUET has leveled the playing field only for private schools and middle class children. We believe government school students should be given first preference for admission into publicly funded universities,” says Harish Gautam, member (Delhi & Haryana) state committee of KYS.
Parents and students of government and budget private schools are not the only communities dissatisfied with CUET. Several college managements object to the erosion of institutional autonomy implicit in admission based solely on CUET scores.
For instance, St. Stephen’s College — ranked India’s #1 arts, science and commerce college in the EW India Higher Education Rankings 2022-23 — is at loggerheads with its affiliating Delhi University over the latter’s decree to admit students solely on the basis of CUET scores. On April 20, the college management announced that it will interview applicants with a sufficiently high CUET rank with 85 percent weightage given to the test rank and 15 percent to an interview. Subsequently on June 1, the college filed a petition in the Delhi high court praying for a stay on DU’s admission directive.
Evidently the management of St. Stephen’s, a private aided college affiliated with Delhi University, which for mysterious reasons has been denied autonomous status despite its 5-star NAAC rating and top ranking in all media (including EW) league tables wants parity with private universities.
It’s pertinent to note that private universities who have opted to admit students on the basis of CUET rank/score have done so conditionally. For instance NIIT University, Neemrana (Rajasthan), which has opted to accept CUET score for undergrad admissions, has prescribed several additional eligibility criteria such as minimum class XII score (50-60 percent) and ‘admission interaction’.
“We admit students on the basis of their scores in several national tests such as IIT-JEE, NEET, BITSAT in addition to our own NIIT University Aptitude Test. CUET is the latest addition. But our admission process is multi-input and holistic. Scores in approved public exams, academic record and performance in curricular, sports and cultural activities apart, all students have to clear our Admission Interaction which involves two-way dialogue with faculty,” explains Prof. Rajesh Khanna, president of NIIT University. Nevertheless though NIIT doesn’t admit undergrads solely on the basis of CUET score, he believes its introduction is “a positive development that has created a level field for students from across the country, and across all school exam boards”.
Similarly, top-ranked private and state government universities which have welcomed CUET are unlikely to admit students solely on the basis of CUET and will tag on additional admission criteria. Therefore, the real fight in CUET is for the 1.36 lakh seats offered annually by the country’s heavily subsidised 45 Central universities, especially Delhi University’s premier 90 affiliated colleges which routinely top media league tables of India’s best colleges. DU is the exception among Central universities, none of which affiliate undergrad/postgrad colleges.
Yet the loudest criticism against CUET is that it has given a huge boost to India’s Rs.40,000 crore private test prep and coaching industry hitherto focused on prepping higher-secondary students to top the notoriously competitive IIT-JEE and NEET public exams for admission into the country’s 23 Indian Institutes of Technology and 596 medical colleges, especially government colleges which provide excellent professional education at rock-bottom price.
Within 24 hours of announcement of CUET on March 21, the mega-bucks private test prep industry went into overdrive, launching short-term courses to prepare students for CUET 2022 scheduled for July-August, and in particular its general test which assesses students’ numerical and logical reasoning capability — not usually included in school curriculums. All major coaching chains such as Career Launcher, Aakash and Unacademy are reporting a huge rush for crash courses while bookings for CUET 2023 and 2024 coaching have also begun. Students are being offered a variety of test prep packages of two-years (classes XI and XII) and one year (class XII) priced between Rs.40,000-1 lakh.
CUET is a huge bonanza for the country’s multi-million dollar test prep industry, much to the detriment of conventional higher-secondary education. The number of students signing up with coaching institutes for CUET preparation will run into millions, against lakhs signing up for IIT-JEE and NEET coaching. Given that the biggest issue with coaching is affordability-related inequity, CUET will substantially widen inequity. Students from rural areas and low-income households will be forced to opt out of the admission process altogether. Meanwhile, ‘collaboration’ between higher secondary schools and coaching institutes will grow in number and importance, and schools themselves will evolve into gigantic, CUET coaching factories. Teaching will quickly orient towards ensuring high CUET scores. Long-form learning will take a backseat with the focus on clearing MCQs, and we can say goodbye to even the limited reading-writing skills that are currently being taught in schools,” laments Dr. Anurag Mehra, professor of chemical engineering and associate faculty at the Center for Policy Studies, IIT-Bombay.
The imminent rejuvenation of test prep coaching schools innocent of holistic education, is also likely to give a fresh push to ‘dummy school’ enrolments. ‘Dummy’ schools don’t require students to attend classes, allowing them to instead spend their time in coaching establishments prepping for competitive exams such as IIT-JEE, NEET and now CUET. To all intent and purposes these are normative schools affiliated with CBSE/state boards. But students are registered and attend school only to write pre-board and board exams to fulfill the requirement of affiliating boards.
Several Delhi NCR school principals interviewed for this feature report that parents are mulling the option of pulling their children out of regular schools and enrolling them in dummy institutions. With CUET determining admission into arts, science and commerce undergrad colleges, the catchment population for coaching schools has hugely expanded.
Education ‘agents’ and consultancies have mushroomed, offering dummy school admission at ‘attractive’ rates. Your correspondent contacted an agency in Delhi which promised hassle-free admission into a CBSE-affiliated dummy school in west or east Delhi at a package of Rs.60,000 for two years (class XI-XII). In Kota, Rajasthan — the coaching capital of India which hosts 150 coaching institutes — dummy school admissions are available at a mere Rs.500-1,000 per month.
“Inquiries from parents for admission into dummy schools have shot up after introduction of CUET. Many schools are also under pressure internally and externally to transform into shell schools. CUET has become another exam that will herd children into coaching institutes. Yet schooling is not only about passing exams, it’s about holistic education to develop children’s character and values. Peer learning, collaboration, and socialisation skills are learnt inside and outside classrooms through participation in co-curricular activities. Holistic schooling is being sacrificed at the altar of this new common entrance test. NEP 2020 clearly states that the coaching culture must end. To do this, we need to disaffiliate dummy schools, align class XII and CUET syllabuses and accord some weightage to school board exam results in undergrad admissions,” advises Dr. Ashok Pandey, director of the CBSE-affiliated Ahlcon Group of Schools, Delhi and lead mentor, Crimson Education.
With CUET being implemented without thorough ground preparation and unwarranted haste, it’s becoming increasingly clear that it will damage the formal school — especially higher-secondary — education system. In one stroke it has devalued the class XII school-leaving exam, threatens the holistic schooling experience, ignores the ugly reality of the well-entrenched test prep coaching industry, and has failed to take the wide disparity in syllabuses and curriculums of 32 state exam boards into account.
Although CUET has become a reality and 1.49 million school-leaving children have written the inaugural common entrance test that will determine admission into 45 much prized Central universities in August/September, it needs to be corrected. Quite clearly some weightage needs to be accorded to the class XII board exam scores. For several years, state governments of Karnataka (50 percent) and Maharashtra (60 percent) have been according weightage to class XII marks to Common Entrance Tests (CETs) scores for admission into engineering undergrad programmes. Secondly, knowledgeable educationists recommend integration and aligning of school curriculums with the CUET syllabus to reduce private coaching dependence. Third, the Council of Boards of School Education (COBSE, estb.1989), a government of India body now in slumber mode, needs to be aroused and tasked to homogenise the syllabuses of the country’s 35 school exam boards and align them with NCERT’s National Curriculum Framework. Moreover, the Central government needs to liberalise and deregulate higher education to increase the number of quality higher ed institutes to match steadily rising demand for tertiary and postgrad education.
“While aligning senior school curriculums with CUET, bringing state boards on a par with the NCERT syllabus, and redesigning this common entrance test to reduce dependence on coaching institutes are some of the immediate measures that need to be taken to address charges that CUET is an exclusionary exam biased in favour of CBSE students, the long term solution is to multiply the number of quality higher education institutions in the country. In its very first year, CUET has been written by 1.49 million students rushing to enter 45 Central universities, especially Delhi University’s reputed undergrad colleges because they provide high quality education. Unless a concerted effort is made to upgrade the country’s other 1,000 universities, entrance exams such as CUET, IIT-JEE, NEET will remain elimination rather than selection tests,” says Dr. Parul Gupta, an alum of IIT-Delhi and Johns Hopkins University, USA, former economics professor at Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi, and currently research consultant at Sattva Consulting, Delhi.
Indisputably the larger national interest demands a common entrance exam for school leavers to ensure that the brightest and best have first preference to enter undergrad colleges of their choice. Even though CUET is a fait accompli, its rules, regulations and mandate have to be tweaked to repair the collateral damage that its peremptory introduction has caused.
Major common entrance exams abroad
Several countries around the world have mandated nationwide common entrance exams to enable top rankers first right to select undergrad colleges/universities of their choice.
China. The National College Entrance Examination aka gaokao is a national college/university entrance exam held annually on June 7-8 across the country. Gaokao rank/score is the sole determinant for admission into top-ranked universities. Administered by the ministry of education, it is notorious for being one of the toughest exams worldwide with the nine-hour exam staged over two days testing everything students have studied from kindergarten to class XII. In 2022, it was written by 11.9 million higher secondary students who are admitted into the republic’s 2,100 universities.
According to media reports, the gaokao is an important national event during which the country comes to a grinding halt. Construction work near examination halls is halted and traffic is diverted, to enable students to write the exam undisturbed, as police patrol the streets to abate noise pollution. Ambulances are on standby in case students suffer nervous breakdowns. When the results are finally announced, toppers are celebrated nationally.
South Korea. The College Scholastic Ability Test aka suneung is a standardised compulsory exam for school-leavers aspiring to enter undergrad programmes in South Korea’s 200 universities. The government-run Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE) conducts this exam on the third Thursday in November.
Like gaokao, it’s exceptionally difficult with teachers specially selected to prepare questions for the nationwide test. Every September, about 500 teachers from across South Korea are selected and driven to a secret location in the mountainous province of Gangwon. For a month, their phones are confiscated and all contact with the outside world is banned to enable them to set questions for suneung. Last year, 500,000 students wrote the test.
USA. The New York-based College Board, a private, not-for-profit organisation, administers the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), a standardised exam written by school-leavers worldwide (3 million students in over 170 countries) aspiring to enter American colleges. Premier universities including Ivy League institutions such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton shortlist — they are not obliged to admit — students with high SAT scores. The famous SAT measures literacy, numeracy and writing skills. Over 4,000 colleges/universities in the US and 85 other countries shortlist students on the basis of SAT score for admission into undergrad degree programmes.
CUET reform recommendations
The out-of-the-blue imposition on March 21 of the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) as the sole, compulsory entrance examination for admission into 45 Central government universities (and affiliated colleges) has generated heated debates. The consensus of academy opinion is that CUET has devalued higher-secondary school education; given a fillip to private test prep coaching enterprises and discriminates against state government and budget private schools.
EducationWorld spoke to a cross-section of school principals, educationists and researchers in think tanks on ways and means to transform CUET into an inclusive and egalitarian entrance exam providing a level playing field for all higher secondary school-leavers countrywide.
Major recommendations:
• NTA (National Testing Agency)/ universities should accord 15-50 percent weightage to class XII board exam scores to final CUET score
• Standardise evaluation processes of the country’s 35 school exam boards
• Debate exam reforms to check grades inflation and ensure assessment of conceptual grasp rather than rote learning
• Align senior secondary school syllabuses with CUET
• Homogenise syllabi of the country’s 32 state boards to bring them on a par with the NCERT syllabus
• Launch investigation into ‘dummy’ schools and disaffiliate them
• Allow universities including Central varsities and their affiliated colleges some latitude to admit students on criteria beyond CUET scores, e.g, personal interview
• Until CUET syllabus is fully integrated with class XI-XII syllabi, consider awarding deprivation points to government/rural school students in CUET/undergrad admission processes of public-funded universities
• Initiate discussions in public forums, with school principals and educationists to integrate CUET with the senior secondary education system
-With inputs from Autar Nehru (Delhi) & Dipta Joshi (Mumbai)
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