The Hindu : Kerala News : Entrance result row calls for closer look

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Sunday, May 01, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

Entrance result row calls for closer look

C. Gouridasan Nair

Statistics show that Achuthanandan may have a point

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Everybody seems unhappy that the Leader of the Opposition, V. S. Achuthanandan, raised questions about the high pass percentage of candidates from Malappuram in the common entrance examinations and there have even been attempts to pit him against the Muslim community over his reported remarks, but a close look at the relevant figures and some recent happenings appear to suggest that whatever Mr. Achuthanandan was trying to say deserves a closer look.

Malappuram is generally considered to be a socially and educationally backward district of Kerala and the district's predominantly Muslim community has all along attributed the social backwardness of the community to the educational backwardness of the district. For instance, it has been pointed out that though 40,167 students had passed the SSLC examination in 2004-'05, only 19,630 seats were available in various schools in the district at the Plus Two level to accommodate them, thereby implying that every second student who passes the SSLC examination from the district has no avenue for higher education in the district.

Malappuram's performance at the Plus Two level is also indicative of the relative educational backwardness of the district. In the 2004 Plus Two examination, the district could secure only the ninth rank in terms of the total number of students who passed with first class and distinction. The district had 2,624 first class holders and 1,077 distinction holders against 1,505 first class holders and 3,201 distinction holders from Thrissur. An analysis of the relevant figures and a tentative projection on how many medical seats students from the district would be able to secure has thrown up some interesting results.

Second place

Given the actual achievements of students from the district, the district should get around 63 medical seats against 132 of Ernakulam, 129 of Thrissur and 128 of Thiruvananthapuram. However, in the 2004 Common Entrance Examination, Malappuram roared into the second place in terms of the number of candidates figuring among the first 1,000 rank holders. The district was able to send 116 candidates to MBBS course against 126 by Thiruvananthapuram, 109 of Ernakulam and 97 of Thrissur, which is considered to be the heartland of the entrance coaching industry in the State.

The variation between the projection and the actual number of sub-1,000 rank holders in the case of Malappuram was a whopping 52. The variation in the case of Thrissur and Ernakulam on the negative side was also equally noteworthy: 32 and 23 respectively.

Interestingly, in the engineering entrance examinations in the same year (2004), Malappuram could come only sixth in terms of the number of sub-1,000 rank holders, the exact number being 61. While it might do nobody, even the Leader of the Opposition, any good to reduce it to something specific to a community or a district as a whole, there seems much in these figures deserving closer study and analysis.

Persons who have worked at the grassroots in Malappuram in the literacy campaign and District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) insist that the people of Malappuram are enthusiastic when it comes to education. It is also pointed out that given the kind of wealth that a section of the population in the district has thanks to the Gulf boom, it is quite possible that they have sent their children to other districts such as Thrissur for intensive entrance coaching. What is needed is a closer look at the financial background of the students who have secured the high ranks and what was their performance in the previous examinations, at least to know whether a ``creamy layer'' from the district is cornering all the glory.

Written complaint

Though unrelated to all this, a written complaint that the Kerala Congress (Secular) MLA, P. C. George, received and released for publication on September 9, 2004, also seems relevant in this context. The complaint, from three persons involved in the verification of 2004 Save A Year (SAY) examination results, was about how they had found the marks for Mathamatics Paper I given in the marklist and computer appeared to have been tampered with. Their complaint was that somebody had tampered with the marks entered in the computer and their demand was that the matter should be subjected to an inquiry.

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