Whither normalisation now?

Updated on: Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Continuity with appropriate changes. This seems to be the dominant mood on an expert committee formed by the State government to prepare a road map for the Kerala engineering entrance examinations, 2012.

Sources in the government say the current thinking is to continue the system of giving 50:50 weight to the marks scored in the entrance examination and those in the Plus Two examinations conducted by various boards in the country. This is the “continuity” aspect.

The change is expected in the manner in which the data sets of various board examinations are used for a process of “normalisation.” While it is clear that the formula used for normalisation in 2011 will not be used again, what alternative the expert committee constituted by the government has in mind is not known.

At a meeting of the committee held in Thiruvananthapuram on December 9, extensive discussions were held on various aspects of the normalisation question. Elaborate discussions were held, in particular, about the advisability of opting for a percentile rank for the normalisation of the scores of different board examinations. Taking active part in the deliberations was an expert from the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.

“A methodology has more or less been identified. However, the committee felt that this should not be revealed for the moment as it has to go through additional ratification processes,” a government source privy to the details of the deliberations told The Hindu EducationPlus.

The official pointed out that the dominant mood in the expert committee was for continuing to give 50:50 weight to the entrance and Plus Two examination scores. “At the national level too, the thinking is veering round to this point that those who can afford expensive entrance coaching and those who cannot should, in the end, get a level playing field. For this, factoring in the marks of the Plus Two examinations is a robust method,” he said.

In fact, the committee is reportedly inclined to consider factoring in the marks of all subjects in the Plus Two examinations and not just those of mathematics, physics, and chemistry as is being done now. Only this, the dominant logic in the committee went, would ensure that Plus Two education is “factored in” in the preparation of the final engineering entrance rank list. Of course, this is a long-term thinking, which will not be implemented next year.

The data hunt

Apart from the charges of unfairness raised by those who came from the Indian School Certificate and the Central Board of Secondary Education streams, a major problem faced by the officials representing the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations is the non-availability of data from many examination boards in India and some from outside the country.

An official deputed by the Commissioner of Entrance Examinations had to go around the country soliciting marks-related data from these boards. At some places, this official had to take impromptu awareness sessions on what “arithmetic mean” or “standard deviation” was. Will this situation play out once again in 2012? No, say sources associated with the deliberations of the expert committee.

“We would start early this year, so that we will not face any problems,” affirmed a senior government official.

Okay, what about the High Court of Kerala? On October 18, when a Division Bench of the Court, comprising the then Acting Chief Justice C.N. Ramachandran Nair and Justice P.S. Gopinathan, dismissed the writ petitions filed against the normalisation procedure used for preparing the engineering rank list for 2011, it noted in its order, “What we notice is that this unusual procedure is adopted for the first time and the impression given in the court is that this method is not going to be continued for the next year…”

The thinking in the expert committee on the issue is that the court has not said anything against the principle of 50:50 weight for marks in the entrance examination and for those in the Plus Two examinations. Some members, it is understood, even felt that the Division Bench had referred to this process as unscientific without a detailed study of the same. Officials who spoke to The Hindu-EducationPlus said this, in essence, was also the legal advice received by the government in this matter.

Public confidence

At least among a section of parents and engineering aspirants, confidence on the whole process of preparing the engineering rank list is very low. They would rather that the Commissionerate went back to the pre-normalisation method of preparing the rank list based solely on the performance in the entrance examination.

If the expert committee, the Commissionerate, and indeed the government itself thinks it important that trust in this process is rejuvenated, some things ought to be done. For starters, the committee should publicly explain — on the Commissionerate web site, through prepared video modules, perhaps — how its normalisation formula for 2012 actually works. Inviting feedback, after such a public explanation, will not be altogether a bad idea. If credible alternatives are presented by experts who are not part of the government's committee, the same should be evaluated and either incorporated or rejected with sufficient explanation. The new formula can be run on trial on data sets of 2010 or 2011 and the results posted on a web site.

But most importantly, the Commissionerate should let the students know as early as possible the exact process for preparing the 2012 rank list. The formula discussed, and more or less finalised, at the December 9 meeting at Thiruvananthapuram may yet be subject to further modification.

A clear picture is expected to emerge by the end of December when the prospectus revamp committee finalises the prospectus for the 2012 entrance examinations.

Given the bitterness generated by normalisation in 2011, the possibility that there may be court cases as soon as the prospectus for 2012 is published is a very real one. In other words, the first real testing ground of the government's engineering rank list formula for 2012 may well be the High Court of Kerala.

Whither normalisation now?

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