My dear wife stops reading my column the moment I refer to St Stephen’s, my alma mater. So, let me try begining with Hindu College, the perfectly eminent institution across the road.

Kavita A Sharma applied to Hindu College straight into second year. She wanted an exit from medicine and the then principal agreed to admit her. The initial results weren’t very encouraging. She emerged from a class on Christopher Marlowe’s Dr Faustus, confused who was the author was, Christopher or Dr Faustus! As the year progressed, Kavita topped the Delhi University, despite having to take the first year’s papers in Eklavya mode. She went on to top other exams and finally didn’t just get a high PhD in literature, but achieved what’s perhaps the greatest honour, principalship of her alma mater. It’s a role she played with distinction, before India International Centre tempted her out of academics.

As St Stephen's interview cut-offs might indicate (http://tinyurl.com/stephenscutoff), there’s no way Kavita today would have been allowed even 100 metres from Hindu College. The Stephen’s cut-off for a science student to get a mere interview call for literature is 97.5 percent. Hindu’s would be higher. Not because the college is better (!) but the fact that Stephen’s invites four candidates for every seat it has. On the other hand, Hindu and other colleges not protected by minority rights, have to accept every single applicant, so long as she has marks higher or equal to the advertised cut-off. Naturally, no principal would stick her neck out for a medical sciences student who wants to walk straight into second year! Also, to guard against an avalanche of eligible students showing up at the admissions window, these colleges seek safety in keeping their first list of cut-offs artificially high.

Kavita describes the situation as our creation of "impermeable walls", where we cut off large groups of students from making inter-disciplinary shifts.

Impermeable walls are self-evident in the manner children from the commerce stream are handled at St Stephen’s. The cut-offs for a mere interview in the economics honours course have been pegged at 97.50. That’s largely because the college feels commerce students aren’t great shakes in economics courses, they’re applying just to hedge their bets against not getting BCom (Hons) in Shriram College! The technique to arrive at 97.50 percent is simple: keep just three-four open seats in the economics class for commerce students and then call the first 16 or so with the highest aggregate for interview. Most will actually confirm the extant theory and migrate to SRCC’s BCom (Hons). It’s no one’s case that an applicant willing to give her right arm for economics, and economics only, having an aggregate of 96 percent in the commerce stream, hasn’t made it through the impermeable gate called The St Stephen’s Interview.

Ironically, at the base of the "impermeable wall" in our schools and colleges lies a shaky foundation. The two-dozen odd boards of examination in our school-leaving system have  taken it upon themselves to devalue marks and distribute them without consequent responsibility. The result is that today, a traditional first divisioner with 60 percent would be considered a near failure. Someone with 75 percent wouldn’t be greeted like a distinction holder. I hear that one of the reasons the boards became so kind was that parents complained that children with less marks were prone to suicide. This needs to be questioned, because what’s happening today is tantamount to collective suicide of India’s entire educational system. I don’t care which board buckled first and started distributing 99 and 100 percent in non-mathematical subjects, but it’s a tragedy of colossal proportions that no state or central board now wishes to be left behind in the race. So, they design question papers and marking schemes which enable "centums" not just in maths, geography or chemistry, but literature, economics and history! The University of Delhi (DU), being a central university, has no powers to differentiate between a credible examination board in one state and an absolute scandal running in another. I wasn't surprised when I was told by a senior tutor today that a student from a board in South India has showed up with 100 percent in all four subjects!

With such massive devaluation of a 90 or 95 percent, students are no less depressed than we would have been in our days with 50 or 60 percent.

So, who has been helped? And what would happen when in a few years Hindu, St Stephen’s or SRCC get more applicants with 100 percent marks than the respective number of seats in a course?

A tailpiece on this saga doesn’t end with Class XII. While HRD minister Kapil Sibal is busy fighting fires a thousand miles away from his portfolio, his own university, DU, has been placatory enough to grant her colleges the power to award 25 marks out of 100 in each paper. The scheme looks fine on paper. But over the years it has become a cover-up for bad teaching and mediocrity. Every college in this premier university complains that save for itself, all others are using the scheme to enhance their results. DU talks of moderation committees, but this has proved to be politically unfeasible. The result is that students are getting 22-25 marks in college assessment without putting in hard work. Thereon they need just a low second division percentage in the university exam to breach the coveted 60/100. So, the DU first division is dying too.

When he does find the time, Sibal should ensure that the percentile system is brought in. Till he does, he can ask for a mapping of who got 25/25 from their college and 25/75 from the university!