Admission time : Looking beyond :: Sky high cut offs
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 22 2018 -

Admission time. Specially for students who have just crossed the Class XII stage.

And as pointed out many times in this column, thousands of students from Manipur too must have gone outside the State to pursue their higher education.

Nothing wrong with this as such, but time to study why the push factor is so strong that many parents feel it necessary to send their children outside the State once they have finished their Class XII.

For those who have cracked NEET and JEE and if they are given colleges based outside the State, it is okay, but how about parents whose children will be pursuing degree courses such as BA, BSc, BCom, BBA etc.

Not easy it must be for the parents of the thousands of students who make a beeline for some of the better placed colleges and universities in the country.

It also stands that not all of them will get into the more well known colleges, and many will settle for colleges which do not score high on any of the parameters conducted by the Government (NIRF) or the independent surveys conducted by big news magazines such as India Today and The Week.

Delhi University is obviously the dream destination of many of these students and looking at the cut offs which have been issued by some of the colleges under DU, only those with exceptional scores, that is scoring above 95 percent and above in the best of four subjects seem likely to make the cut for the on campus colleges.

Significant to note too that the Class XII topper (Science) in the examination conducted by the Council of Higher Secondary Education, Manipur (COHSEM) this year, fell short of the cut off in the prestigious St Stephen’s College at DU.

There are obviously other competitive colleges at DU where the first topper from Manipur will find a place, but the point here is the excessively high marks sought by well known colleges.

It is not only DU, but other top notch colleges such as Madras Christian College, Chennai and St Xavier’s College, Kolkata and Mumbai have set such high benchmarks which will be tough for many of the students from Manipur.

This brings all to the question of whether students from Manipur do not have it in them to score as well as students in other parts of the country.

Remember in the Class XII examinations conducted by the CBSE this year, more than 22 thousand students scored 95 pc and above.

The question is how many students from Manipur are among the 22 thousand students who scored 95 pc and more in the Class XII exams ?

This should give all food for thought.

The reason why the reputed colleges have set such a high bench mark or cut offs is simply due to the fact that students at the Class XII level do score very, very high marks.

Hence cuts offs as high as 97, 98 and even 99 pc.

Situation is such that a first class today will mean 95 pc and above, a second class 90 pc to 94.75 pc and a third class will mean 85 to 89.75 pc.

The others may be seen as simple pass !

Tough to say whether the high scoring trend reflects the education of the students or not but this is the reality and it is against this reality that thousands of students from Manipur are moving outside the State to pursue their higher education.