Reforms and much more

Updated on: Monday, February 15, 2010

Education in India is certainly going through a process of change. At every level, be it primary or tertiary, education has seen some sort of tweaking. The latest is the mulling over of a national level entrance exam for admission to colleges. Yes, the HRD Ministry is thinking of putting an exam in place that is akin to the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) in the US.

HRD Ministry discused the idea in a meeting of school principals and university Vice Chancellors recently in a bid to find ways to improve the interaction between the school and university system. Ministry sources said that the meeting had several focus areas. A common core curriculum in the Sciences, Commerce and Economics at the Higher Secondary level was one. The possibility of grading and Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) at the +2 level; inter-board comparability of results and a facilitative continuity marking the shift from school to college were other subjects that were talked about.

What the Ministry is concerned about — especially after reforms have been introduced at the school level — is the smooth transition for children from one level of education to the other. Classes XI and XII are the time when undergraduate programmes are chosen and when students need the maximum clarity and guidance about which path to choose. With this in mind the meeting also brought together heads of educational institutes like the CBSE, NCERT, NCTE, etc. The discussions also honed in on the fact that students have to appear for several entrance exams to get into undergraduate programmes in engineering, medical sciences, law etc. And with each institute having its own test, students were thoroughly stressed out at the end of the application process.

This was when it was suggested that a SAT-type, national-level entrance test with a national percentile score in different subjects could be considered.

Ultimately it was all about making life easy for the student fraternity.

Reforms and much more

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