It’s Not Just Teething Troubles

Besides the toll taken by this year’s glitches and delays, is CUET really in students’ interest?

- Ali Raza Moosvi

Admission to a university is an important and sacrosanct step in the life of an individual. Apart from the experience of entering the ‘universe’ of knowledge, it means freedom from parental control and becoming master of one’s own time. It is an admission into a different life, far or close from home and the first taste of freedom with responsibility.

Historically, the decision to go to a particular university was determined by one’s school scores and guided by such factors such as a career plan, the advice of elders and well-wishers, distance, affordability and convenience, and the comfort of kinship ties in an institution.

Driving logic of the uniform test: Common entrance tests for admission to professional courses emerged in the late 1980s to regulate student input for creating a standardised skill set and professional acumen. The validity of board exam results began to crumble when it came to measuring scholastic aptitude even as an unhealthy ‘coaching culture’ was born.

Universities added entrance exams for admission in the hope that additional filters would enable them to objectively strain and control the huge numbers that flow from schools into a higher education system of inadequate capacity.

Since then, filters have continuously been added at every level. It would perhaps not be an exaggeration to observe that Indian students today are more ‘tested’ than ‘educated’!