Common University Entrance Test won’t solve the real problems

Avijit Pathak writes: To transform education we need to work on the quality of schools and pedagogy, honest and fair recruitment of teachers, relative autonomy of academic institutions and learn to value the uniqueness of each child.

Cuet Mock Test 

It is not easy to take a categorical position on the UGC’s latest move to introduce the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for admissions in undergraduate courses in 45 central universities in the country. True, no one can negate its immediate appeal. In a country like ours, because of the uneven quality of different school boards — from the much-hyped CBSC and ICSE to not so rigorous regional boards — there is a huge trust deficit and suspicion about the academic quality of even the “toppers”. No wonder, a centralised mode of ranking and evaluation through the CUET is bound to have its appeal; it promises an “objective” and “value-neutral” measurable index for selecting and eliminating young aspirants for different courses. Furthermore, this centralised test would free the tension-ridden youngsters from the pressure of writing multiple entrance tests in different colleges/universities. Likewise, the supremacy of the CUET score/ranking in the selection process would invariably eliminate the pathology of absurd and inflated cut-offs for admissions in “branded” colleges.

This is like saying that one need not necessarily get 499/500 in the board exam to study psychology in Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi University! The only thing that would matter now is one’s performance in the CUET. Moreover, the proponents of a standardised test like this would always argue that there is no other way to filter people when the number of aspirants is too high; and this is possible only when we avoid “subjective biases”, cherish “objectivity”, and quantify and measure with mathematical precision one’s mental aptitude and domain knowledge in a specific discipline.

Yet, despite these practical arguments, we should also acquire the courage to see the limitations of this sort of standardised test. First, the dominant structure of education prevalent in the country is essentially book-centric and exam-oriented; either rote learning or strategic learning (a gift of coaching centres) is its essence; and far from learning and unlearning with joy, wonder and creativity, young students become strategists or exam-warriors.

Weekly tests, monthly tests, mock tests, and all sorts of standardised tests — NEET, JEE, and mathematics or science Olympiads — invade the mental landscape of our students. Under these circumstances, true learning suffers. Is it, therefore, surprising that for an IIT aspirant, physics tends to become primarily FIITJEE physics, or mathematics is nothing more than what the coaching centres at Kota consider worth teaching? The question is: Will the CUET alter the scenario? Or, will it be yet another addition in the list of tests our children have to prepare for with stress and anxiety? And will it be possible for teachers in our schools to teach history or literature, and geography or chemistry with joy and creative surplus? Or, will they be further pressurised to teach only for these standardised tests? Will they find themselves insignificant and irrelevant as educators amid the “experts” who control the National Testing Agency? Is it that, in the coming years, schools are going to lose their relevance as students and parents are likely to rely primarily on gigantic coaching centres and fancy Ed Tech companies?