It would be difficult to decide which was the greater tragedy ~ fiasco at the AI Summit, or admission of students with negative marks in post-graduate medical classes. However, one thing is beyond doubt ~ both exemplify the deep rot that plagues our education system. An examinee who leaves the answer book blank would get zero marks in the NEET-PG examination, so only an ignorant candidate, who is also foolish ~ a dangerous combination for a medical specialist ~ would end up with negative marks (a more savvy candidate would choose a particular option, say A, for all 200 questions, and given the fact that a right answer gets four marks, and a wrong answer fetches minus one mark, would end up with 50 marks).
The same epithet could be used for college students who demonstrated a rechristened Chinese robodog, claiming it as their own creation, because any reasonably intelligent person would have known that such plagiarism would be easily detected at the AI Summit, where topmost global IT talent was present. There was a time, not too long ago, when merit was recognised and rewarded, and plagiarism, or ‘cheating,’ was looked down upon. However, times have definitely changed ~ responding to a PIL filed in Supreme Court challenging the reduction of the minimum qualifying marks for PG medical admissions, the Health Ministry averred that a low cut-off does not imply incompetence, losing sight of the fact that the NEET-PG examination is specifically designed to test the suitability of candidates to pursue medical specialisation, and a candidate getting negative marks is definitely not cut out to become a specialist doctor.
In the same vein, after the Chinese robodog was called out at the AI Summit, no remorse was expressed ~ either by the boys and girls who claimed to have created the robodog, or by the college management, that furthered the deception. To be fair, a leading IT company had also showcased the same robodog at the AI Summit, with a different name, though not as their own creation. Significantly, just desserts have eluded all dramatis personae involved in this sordid drama. It is not difficult to see that gross commercialisation is at the root of such incidents. The Health Ministry let the cat out of the bag, when at the end of their affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, they said that reducing cut-off was a recurrent phenomenon and if the cut-off was not reduced, 9,600 medical speciality seats would remain vacant.
The public is definitely not going to benefit by having such poor-quality medical specialists ~ the overwhelming majority of vacant seats being in private medical colleges, it is not difficult to see who will benefit from lowering the cut-off. Since a suitable number of candidates were not available, year after year, a logical step could be to convert post-graduate seats to MBBS seats, as more MBBS doctors are required. In any case, students scoring less than pass marks in the NEET-PG examination should be re-examined for validity of their MBBS degree. Sadly, the rot in the education system starts at the beginning. According to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024, a survey of 6.5 lakh children revealed that 76 per cent of Class 3 students, 55.2 per cent of Class 5 students, and 32.5 per cent of Class 8 students still cannot read Class 2 level texts, and over 66 per cent of Class 3 and Class 5 students, struggle with simple maths.
The reason is not far to seek. Till today, Government schools established by the British, more than a century ago, are the backbone of our education system. Due to neglect over the years, most Government schools are now floundering, with falling buildings, and a huge shortage of teachers. Most of the Government primary schools have a single teacher, teaching many classes in a single room. A viral video from Bihar showed five primary Government schools operating from a single room, with five teachers writing on a single blackboard, to a roomful of bemused children. Obviously, education imparted in such schools would be of an abysmal standard, yet despite pontifications at the highest levels, no efforts are visible for the improvement of Government schools, where most of the poor children get educated.
The shortage of teachers is amplified with Government teachers being entrusted with all kinds of administrative tasks like vaccine surveys, gram sabha work, voter list revision, Aadhaar enrolment, sports events, cleanliness drives and nutrition surveys. Teachers are the workhorses for the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise; the strenuous nature of this job has resulted in a number of suicides. In fact, the Gujarat government has identified 123 non-academic, noneducation-related works for which teachers are commandeered. Marking a new low, recently, the state government issued a circular (withdrawn now) directing teachers to conduct a survey of stray dogs in and around school campuses. Schoolchildren fare little better, being asked to swell crowds for VIP visits and Government-sponsored events.
However, throwing out the baby with the bathwater, the Government is closing down schools on the pretext of low enrolment ~ negating the Right to Education. An obvious solution could be to provide enough funds, and appoint able and motivated persons, with sufficient financial and administrative powers, as heads of Government schools. And surely, the Government has sufficient resources to spare teachers, and hire ad-hoc volunteers, to carry forward Government schemes. Secondary education appears to be doing better, what with almost 94 per cent pass rate in CBSE tenth board examinations and 88.4 per cent pass rate in twelfth board examinations, with almost two lakh students scoring above 90 per cent in CBSE tenth and 1.1 lakh students in CBSE twelfth board examinations.
This façade is ripped away at engineering and medical examinations; the qualifying score was 20.56 per cent at the JEE Advanced Examination, and 18.75 per cent, in NEET. Also, we have the sad spectacle of parents doing everything possible to ‘help’ their wards; be it climbing walls to pass on chits at examination time, or to cut deals with examiners. Built on such a ramshackle foundation, the edifice of higher education is bound to be shaky. Universities have proliferated ~ from 17 in 1947 to more than 1,300 now ~ but the quality has definitely deteriorated. The prime reason is that there are few employment opportunities for young men with traditional education. Resultantly, the great universities of yesteryears like Calcutta University have a large number of vacant seats at undergraduate level. Even engineering courses in run-of-the-mill institutions have no value in the job market. Not surprisingly, hardly half the seats for undergraduate engineering courses could be filled up across India.
However, quality college education develops essential skills like analytical thinking, active learning, and complex problem solving, which results in brighter college graduates with the right skillset being paid more, and being employed at higher levels. This would explain why sixteen lakh students appear for the 18,000 IIT seats. The icing on the cake is that a talented alumnus of IIT/IIM can, one day, aspire to become the CEO of some top US corporate. Outside the charmed circle of IITs/IIMs, a student of ordinary means faces a cruel dilemma. After completing his school education, he has little capital, skill or experience to strike out on his own. If he goes to a second-grade college in India, he can only hope that he will get some small-time employment ~ after wasting his parent’s money and several years of his own life.
The obvious solution is to link education to jobs, which is not an untried idea; one-half to nearly two-thirds of students pursue vocational education in Germany and Switzerland. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 rightly aims to introduce vocational education at all levels by integrating vocational education into mainstream education in all educational institutions, by 2030. But implementation of NEP 2020 is far behind schedule; NEP had envisaged that by 2025, at least half of the students would have vocational exposure through school and higher education.
The problem in implementation of NEP appears to be of finance and resolve; the NEP document requires that 6 per cent of GDP be spent on education, while we are spending only half that. Further, changeover to NEP would require teacher re-education, new infrastructure and a complete overhaul of the education system ~ which is easier said than achieved. Probably, a small beginning can be made by developing courses that foster specialization in emerging fields like horticulture, child care, customer marketing etc. which offer higher-paying jobs.
(The writer is a retired Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax)
