‘From 120 to 1’, announced the headline of a news story on the front page of the Indian Express newspaper. This was about the number of students from Kerala admitted to one particular course in one of the colleges of Delhi University. So far, it seems, only one student from that state has been able to secure admission in the political science course at Hindu College, whereas the number of students admitted last year was 120:
“…the admission lists of some colleges show a distinct change this year – an effect of the changeover to admissions based on the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) scores, instead of the Class XII board exam scores. Last year, of the 146 students admitted in the B.A. (Hons) Political Science programme in Hindu College after the first two cut off lists, 124 were from state school boards – 120 from the Kerala board, 3 from Rajasthan, and 1 from Haryana.
“This year, while the second round of seat allocation is still underway, only one of the 59 students admitted so far is from a state board – Kerala board. The course has a sanctioned strength of 49 seats.”
The report is talking about only the first list. At least three more lists are yet to come. But, the newspaper says, the number of students from Kerala getting admitted to other DU colleges has also reduced.
Another leading newspaper headline says “After CUET, Kerala Board students go from second highest to seventh at DU”. The report says that students from the Kerala Board have ‘slipped’ to seventh position, while CBSE remains at the top this year as well, followed by the Council for Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE). The State education boards of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana are placed higher than the Kerala Board after the second round of seat allocation.
We are told that this is the impact of the new admission process through CUET, which has reduced board exam scores to a qualifying mark and ensured that the “anomaly that often arises with students of a particular board filling up a number of seats due to ‘inflation of marks’ has not arisen.”
The fall in the number of students from Kerala is a reality, at least as far as initial rounds go, as is the fact that this follows the introduction of CUET as a single entrance exam for all Central educational institutions.
But if the old system allowed ‘anomalies’ – one supposed example of which was the high number of students from Kerala getting admission into DU – are we so sure there are no ‘anomalies’ with a CUET-based admission process?
To answer that, we need to look at the background of the ‘Kerala’ question at Delhi University.
There was an uproar in 2021 that students from Kerala had ‘invaded’ the political science department of the Hindu college and had captured all the seats. One teacher claimed that Kerala was waging a ‘Marks Jihad’. The accusation was that the Kerala board had devised a way to inflate marks with the aim of cornering seats in Delhi University.
This absurd allegation led to an inquiry by the university. A committee analysed the data on admissions based on the declared cut-off of examination marks and saw that among the 39 school boards from which students had applied, the highest intake of students was from CBSE (37,767), followed by the Kerala Board of Higher Secondary Education (1,890), Haryana Board of School Education(1,824), CISCE (1,606) and Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education (1,329).
The maximum number of seats – nearly 38,000 – had gone to the students from the CBSE board. The Kerala board was next on the list. But the number of students from the Kerala board getting admission was barely 5% of those from the CBSE. Right behind Kerala was the Haryana board.
So why was Kerala being blamed and demonised then? Why was a ‘Haryana conspiracy’ not talked about? Even if there was an assumed entitlement of CBSE students to corner all the seats of Delhi University, there was nothing the students of Kerala (or Haryana) had done to challenge that as students from the CBSE board secured nearly 80% of all seats at DU.
Also Read: CUET’s Implementation Has Undoubtedly Been Botched – But Most Have Ignored the Issue
It is also fair to ask what happened to the committee’s assurance of “substantial objectivity”. Despite its report noting that the University of Delhi – being a central university – has a responsibility of ensuring absolute equity in admissions across all the higher secondary boards spanning various states and Union Territories, the difference between the CBSE and other boards has widened even more this year.
2022 has brought with it a near-total capture by the CBSE. It is getting clear that it is the CBSE which is the major gainer of the new centralised admission process. Is it a happy situation for Delhi University that the number of students from a state like Kerala – a state with the best educational indicators – has reduced drastically and that its already CBSE-dominated intake is getting further homogenised?
It is not difficult to understand the bias in CUET in favour of CBSE, which is officially based on the NCERT curriculum. Naturally, it is not only the Kerala board but other state boards too that are at a disadvantage. Given CUET’s design, it was to be expected that most state board students would be pushed out by CBSE students. What about the claim that CUET is correcting the ‘anomaly’ that often arises with students of a particular board filling up a number of seats? It is this that we need to ponder over and address.
We never think about the fact that the highly privileged CBSE is a much smaller board when compared with other state boards. Why do we think it absolutely unproblematic that a smaller board captures the maximum number of seats while much larger state boards are left behind? What happened to the idea of equity or equality?
It has often been pointed out that the CBSE needs a course correction. Students getting 100% marks in political science or English or other subjects is not something to be celebrated. The whole idea of model answers that CBSE examiners have to adhere to while marking papers leads to rote learning. Also, we need to study how the CBSE – since it gets favoured in all national entrance examinations, like the NEET – is impacting other boards, especially the state boards. Is it good that they all become copies of the CBSE? Is this legally fair to all states?
Representative image of students lining up for an entrance exam. Photo: PTI
We need to study carefully the profile of students entering universities like DU. Is the body diverse, does it represent multiple linguistic groups or not? It should have been a matter of celebration that students from a state far away from Delhi want to come to Delhi University.
In fact, one of us was greatly heartened when – during a public consultation on the curriculum review conducted by SCERT Kerala – we had a chance to listen to Class 12 students on the changes they wanted in their school curriculum. One recalls the bold suggestions and changes the girls from a government school spontaneously made without being daunted by the presence of senior officials. One also vividly remembers the sparkle in the eyes of some when they spoke of the programme they aspired most for – political science at Delhi University. They dream of participating in the cosmopolitan experience that a university like DU is supposed to offer.
What we saw last year was an ugly demonstration of North Indian nationalist parochialism which presented students from Kerala as a threat. It is unfortunate that the university felt compelled by this outcry to institute an enquiry. It was worse that it did not categorically debunk the conspiracy theory.
Post Script: More worryingly, last week also saw news reports about four students from the state being assaulted, allegedly by some ABVP members, for wearing their traditional attire. Suspicion and hatred towards the Kerala students could have been a reason for the attack. One report says the attackers were drunk but is it unreasonable to assume the misinformation about a ‘Kerala conspiracy’ to capture Delhi University could have played a role in the assault?