Tag: College

Colleges and cut offs

Education, India
1 Comment

It is time for admission to colleges. Delhi University introduced common admission form for its colleges and allowed colleges to fix cut-off percentages. Sri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) fixed 100% as cut-off percentage. Some have criticised it. P. C. Jain, principal of SRCC, defended it. Science students who do not get admission in SRCC can go to IIT or IIM. Best way to do away with stress is to have no marks, no examinations and no evaluations and have lottery to select students.

Some other colleges had cut-off percentages in the range of 95%-99%. Students who do not get admission in the first list may get admission in subsequent lists.

Some years back it was difficult to score 100 marks. Now with objective type questions it is possible for students to score 100% marks. In any major city good colleges are few and students who want admissions in them are many times more than seats available and hence cut-off percentages are high in such colleges.

The problem in Delhi gets magnified due to media presence. Problems of students in other cities do not get prominence.

If science students with 97% marks or less want to switch to commerce they should go to a college where admission is available instead of demanding they be given admission in place of commerce students who have got 100% marks. Arts and commerce students cannot switch to science. Those who did not study biology in junior college cannot get admission in medical colleges. To get admission to engineering college one should have studied science in junior college. The argument that students are not able to make their minds at junior college level and those who took science in junior college should be able to get admission to B.Com in a college of their choice at a percentage less than that of commerce students is wrong.

The problem of admissions would have been more serious if there had been grade system with students who would have got 91%-100% marks being in A grade. For one seat there may be more than 100 applicants with A grade and rejections could result in riots.

One solution is to have colleges with online classes. Lectures can be webcast and students can attend them at home. Another solution is to have classes in stadia with protection from sun and rain. Students can have swipe cards to mark attendance. Biometric system is better. What lecturer writes on blackboard can be shown on giant screens.

College admissions, boys and girls

Education, General, India
Comments

Some colleges in Bangalore have 50% of seats for boys and 50% of seats for girls. This year girls performed better than boys in school board examinations. As a result cut off marks for girls are higher than for boys.
Many girls are upset. Many women say this is discrimination. A girl’s father has filed a writ petition in the High Court.
When performance of boys was better nobody talked of discrimination. When boys lost to girls who had less marks there was no talk of discrimination. Now equal number of seats has become a disadvantage to girls so there is shouting and criticism. Now many women want merit to be the only criterion.
Merit should have been the only criterion. People should have protested when colleges fixed equal number of seats for boys and girls. That time there should have been merit being the only criterion.
For this year admissions are over. For next year colleges may follow merit as the only criterion. However if boys perform better and get more than 50% seats girls should not complain and demand equal number of seats.
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Educational institutions and freedom of religion

India
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Educational institutions have the right to make rules. Those who study in them have to abide by the rules.

People of India have freedom of religion.

It is unreasonable for any student to ask the management to change the rules because his/her religion says otherwise.

One Muslim student was not allowed to keep beard. He went to court. The Supreme Court dismissed his appeal. One judge talked of talibanisation. Some reacted strongly to that comment. The judge apologized. He should not have apologized. Now there is a review petition.

One Muslim female student did not want to abide by the dress code of SVS College, Bantwal, which forbade headscarf/burkha and could not attend the college.

It is not obligatory for a Muslim man to keep beard. Many Muslim men in India and abroad do not keep beard. Rafsanjani, who was President of Iran, did not keep beard. Most of the leaders in Pakistan do not keep beard.

In Islam woman is expected to dress modestly. Modesty is a matter of interpretation. Many Muslim women do not wear burkha/headscarf. It was strange to see some champions of women’s rights talking in favour of women wearing burkha/headscarf which otherwise is condemned as symbol of oppression and discrimination.

Freedom of religion which is subject to some limitations. What happens if everyone wants to exercise his/her freedom of religion in a college? What if a Digambar Jain or Naga Sadhu comes naked to a college claiming freedom of religion? What if a Muslim man asks lecturer to stop the class because it is time for Namaz? It is all right for a Muslim school to allow or ask its male students to keep beard and make burkha/headscarf compulsory to its female students but not all right for Muslim students to ask Non-Muslim schools and colleges to change their rules or exempt them from rules. If a Sikh man or Christian priest or nun wants admission in SVS College they have to follow the rules.

Most of the Muslim students follow the rules of schools and colleges without any problem. Few students create problems. Muslim students who follow the rules do not make news. Muslim students who do not follow the rules make news.