The 100 pc benchmark Peak Perfect
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 17, 2011 -
A perfect score may not necessarily mean that it would evoke a sense of awe and amazement and far from recognising the hard work, the talent and perseverance that go behind a perfect score, the initial response to a perfect score may be one of disbelief and even an accusation of a conspiracy.
Nadia Comaneci will perhaps fully agree with this observation for when the then petite 14 year old gymnast from Romania scored a perfect 10 in the Uneven Bars at the Montreal Olympics in 1976, the score board showed her score as 1.00 as it was not equipped to record and display a perfect score of 10 points.
From initial disbelief to scripting history in modern Olympics, is how the story of Comaneci went and will go, but there is no guarantee that everything will follow her story or trudge her path.
Mankind is obsessed with that quality called "perfect" and while everyone agrees that perfectness is something far removed from the reality of human existence it has not dissuaded people from striving towards this seemingly insurmountable summit.
It may perhaps be in keeping with this obsession of mankind that the reputed Sri Ram College of Commerce, popularly known as SRCC of Delhi University, has come out with the cut off list for admission to its coveted BCom honours course at 100 percent. Yes a perfect score is what the Principal and the policy makers of SRCC are inviting.
Not surprisingly, the decision of the college has not amused anyone, least of all Union Minister of Human Resources Development Kapil Sibal who has dubbed the 100 percent cut off as irrational.
We are sure 99 percent of the students and their parents will agree with Mr Sibal but what is important to note here is that the authority of SRCC first thought it perfectly okay to set the cut off at 100 percent.
Logic tells us that the college will have to come out with the second, third or fourth list for scoring a perfect 100 pc in the class XII examination is a thought that no one will entertain in his or her wildest dream.
For the record, the Vice Chancellor of Delhi University is understood to have informed Mr Sibal that there is only one student among those seeking admission in the university colleges, who has managed the perfect score of 100 percent in the Class XII examination.
This by itself says that SRCC will have to come out with another cut off percentage, maybe something which can be deemed as scorable or within the reach of mankind in general.
The second, third or fourth cut off as well as the fact that there is only student with 100 percent seeking admission in Delhi University however does not explain why SRCC should fix the cut off at the absurd 100 percent.
It is madness in its most raw form but there is a method to the madness and it is here that the country has to come face to face with all the seamier side of academics that pass off as merit. If the obsession with brand has come to reduce education to some kind of a joke then the obsession with marks has added that tragic ring to the joke.
Score cards are okay and even indispensable in say a game of football, or cricket or basketball or any other sports but the moment this becomes the denominator to decide the performance of a student and enters the sanctum sanctorum of education, then it is time to see the writings on the wall.
There are so many other factors that can and will influence the performance of a student and given the system of examination followed by most of the Boards and Universities, such a system of evaluation will come to mean judging the preparation of a student for a full academic year within the three hours that they sit in the examination hall to write their answers.
Nothing can be more lopsided than this and the tragedy rings out louder when we consider the point that this system is perpetuated by the very set of men and women who are at the helm of the academic world.
It was in recognition of the growing need to revamp the whole education system and how people perceive and understand the merit of a student, that the Union Human Resources Ministry decided to come out with a new pattern in all the schools under the Central Board of Secondary Education.
Thanks to the new system, there is now no way that one can say that a student who has secured 97 percent is a better student than another who has secured 95.75 pc and so it goes on.
If school teachers teaching Class X students have to cope with the new challenges set down by the novel system, then it defies logic to even think that a college as reputed as SRCC should come out with the 100 percent cut off.
Under what parameter is the college going to decide that a student who has scored 100 pc is a better student than another who has scored 98 pc or 96 pc or 95 pc ?
Deciding merit by the marks scored in an examination can have only a limited usage and the sooner everyone, particularly those helming the affairs of education in the country, come around to the idea that the practice of awarding marks is resorted to because there is no better option in sight, the better and healtheir it would be for everyone.
There can be no justification for muddying the water even more than what it is today. The perfect score is fantastic in Gymnastics and we have Comaneci as the perfect example, but a perfect score in the Class XII exam ?
Great Expectations is only the name of a novel and this should not mean scaling Peak Perfect.
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