VC says four more lists to go, cutoffs will fall

Updated on: Thursday, June 16, 2011

Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, along with others, termed the 100% cutoff announced by SRCC "irrational" and called DU Vice-Chancellor Dinesh Singh to his office to understand the process in question.

VC Singh said the subsequent cutoffs would be rational. At the same time, he said colleges were autonomous and cutoffs were decided by the staff council. "Reform is needed," Singh said, pointing to the need to alter university statutes although he also said there should not be too much centralization.

The perfect score cutoff drew sharp responses from politicians and academics. Calling it bizarre, CPM leader Sitaram Yechury said, "Even if Shakespeare were to come back and take an English exam today, he will not score 100%." A North Campus principal said the cutoff should not be taken too seriously. "Cutoffs are a kind of jugglery. SRCC's cutoff for commerce students is 96, which is still reasonable. Students of other streams get a negative weightage of up to 5%. That's why it has touched 100%," he said. Many blamed the move towards objective-type exams and liberal marking by CBSE for the absurdly high cutoffs this year. Said Meera Ramachandran, principal of Gargi College and a former adviser to CBSE, "The BCom (H) cutoff has touched an all-time high. It is like a syndrome. CBSE has too much of unit marking making it easy to score. This in turn affects cutoffs. And during moderation at CBSE, evaluators used to argue that they should give high scores as DU keeps its cutoffs high. It is a vicious cycle." However, some experts said the way out was to expand seat capacity. "I don't think CBSE marks should be blamed. Its credibility has never been questioned. It's not too bad if the quality of students is improving," said Jaswinder Singh, principal, Khalsa College."There is a great rush of students coming to DU every year. We need funds to create more seats. We should try to take in as many students as possible," he said.

VC Singh said the reason for the high cutoffs was the dramatic increase in students securing 95% and above. Last year, he said, more than 200 students got more than 95% but in 2011 the number has gone up to more than 800. Ministry sources also said there is a need for some moderation in marking by CBSE especially in subjects like English and social sciences.

Singh, however, termed the "hype" around the SRCC cutoff unfortunate. "Why is everyone concentrating on the SRCC cutoff which in any case is just for a small number of students? Most other colleges have brought out sober cutoffs. And cutoffs will come down in any case. Which is why we have five cutoffs this year. This is a new system and though I am not condemning it, we will have a better process in place from next year," he said. Many educationists felt it was time the absurdly high cutoffs were brought down. "It has reached the threshold," said Vineet Joshi, chairman, CBSE.

Times of India

VC says four more lists to go, cutoffs will fall

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