Kapil Sibal has lost it. He is taking the one fair exam that the nation has and turning it into something that is vehemently unfair.
When I went to IIT, I met a range of people with extremely diverse backgrounds. One of them was from a village called Kaimganj which doesn't have even the basic schooling infrastructure in place. There is no way his school would have produced someone in the top bracket. That is the problem with most villages. At least this way with one common examination they have a chance.
At first glance his arguments have a point. The coaching institutions do give an advantage to those who study there but at least the teaching body and the examining one are independent of each other unlike the boards. Also his argument about money is flawed to say the least. Money always bestows an advantage no matter what the system may be. A student with the right parents will always have an edge over the poor one. Thats the way life works but as far as possible the government should at least strive for equal opportunity.
Kapil Sibal thinks that the Boards are fair system but they are in fact the opposite. The logistical issue of reconciling the different boards aside, the fact remains that certain schools have more weight with the boards and technically even though all schools are equal some are more so than the others. At least the coaching institutions cannot influence the results in any other way apart from teaching the students well.
In my personal experience the boards were the dumbest and least interesting exams I gave. Their purpose is not judge your intelligence but simply to pass students. The boards encourage rote learning on a nationwide scale. Concepts take a back seat and if you do not write exactly what is asked for and deviate from the keywords you are a lost cause.
The big schools DPS, CMS et al will always get marked leniently in comparison to other schools. They get these advantages because they have money and a lot of school affiliated to the board under their belt. The boards cannot afford to piss these schools of. With the increase in weight age of the boards these schools will have the most number of students in the eligible bracket making the IITs truly elitist. The end result of this will be the fact that the IITs will be far less diverse. Kapil Sibal seems to think this solution will eliminate coaching institutions but there will always be a demand for teachers and the teachers will simply coach students for Boards rather than the competitive exams and it is far easier to coach someone for the board exams than the IITs.
The common entrance exams for all their faults are the fairest solution that we have but it seems politicians only know how to make break things and not fix them.
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