KOLKATA: Vice-chancellors and college principals in Kolkata are already concerned over the high scores of students in board exams of higher secondary and ISC and the implications it might have on the admission process.
West Bengal Council for Higher Secondary Education and Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination declared results of higher secondary examinations and ISC examinations last week.
In HS, number of students, who have scored above 90%, is 9,013 and those between 80 and 89 is 49,370. Close to 27,000 students have cleared ISC this year and principals feel if they consider a conservative figure of 20% getting above 90% they already have 5, 400 students with 90%.
To put the numbers in context there are only 700 seats in Presidency University at UG level across all streams. In JU, there are 981 seats in humanities and science put together. Ramkrishna Mission Vidyamandira has only a total of 220 seats in all the subjects put together. Bhawanipur Education Society College has 4,000 seats in all the three streams put together. Bethune College has 540 seats. Gokhale Memorial Girls’ College has close to 525 seats.
VCs and principals feel that such high scores might apparently convey that they will help individuals secure seat in a good college or university but it neither helps the students nor the colleges and universities because in the absence of an admission test the seats might just get blocked and deserving candidates will have to settle for the second or even third best.
Subiresh Bhattacharya, secretary of the West Bengal Vice Chancellors’ Council and president of the All Bengal Principals’ Council, said all colleges and state-owned universities will have to abide by the government order of admitting students on the basis of Class-XII marks.
In 2020, when board exams remained incomplete due to the pandemic, boards awarded marks liberally. But the move proved counter productive with students even applying in subjects they were not interested to pursue. While such students blocked the seats those who actually wanted to study the subject had to book a slot in colleges which were not their first choice.
Many colleges that were planning to conduct admission tests or online interviews have already cancelled after the government’s order. “Some departments had planned online admission tests and others online interviews having 30% weightage. But we cancelled this after the government’s order. Our only concern is that many high scorers will block the seats but never take admission. Though we will get more time to fill-up seats, but shall miss out on meritorious and interested students,” said Deepali Singhee, principal of J D Birla Institute.
At Bhawanipur Education Society, students will be admitted only on the basis of Class-XII marks.
Colleges like Lady Brabourne, Scottish, Ramakrishna MissionVidyamandira will take into account marks in Class X boards along with Class-XII marks to screen students.
