When winners turn losers
Sandhya Soman and Vani Doraisamy
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The decision to do away with TNPCEE is perceived as a setback by many students. After all, they toiled for months to get a high score. CBSE candidates saw the examination as a great leveller vis-a-vis top scorers from the State Board. Where do they stand now?
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Photo: N. Sridharan
UNEXPECTED TWIST: Candidates who took the TNPCEE find now that their prospects for admission depend on a new set of factors.
Worry lines have replaced smiles. After being feted for bagging top ranks in the Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examinations 2005, the toppers and their parents are now wondering what is in store for them — whether to appeal to the Chief Minister to spare them from the decision to have no more entrance tests for admission to professional courses or to take recourse to legal action.
"I don't approve of this decision to do away with TNPCEE at this time. Especially after the last date for submitting applications at the Anna University got over.
They should have done this at the beginning of the academic year," says Santhosh Jude, who scored the highest cut-off in the engineering stream.
His mother Benita tries to hide her emotions as she talks about her entire family's efforts that went into making Jude the top scorer.
`My chances will go down'
"I would've got the first seat in Anna University. My chances will go down as I scored only 599 out of 600 in the board exams," says Santhosh. This will lower his rank when converted for an aggregate of 200. A.N. Govindan, father of G. Srinivas Prasad who scored 98.88 to top the TNPCEE, says he is shocked.
"I thought the decision will come into effect only from the next academic year. They should have informed us at least three months in advance, so my son could spend more time on preparing for his board examinations."
K. Gautam, fifth rank holder in the medicine stream, has another set of worries despite scoring centums in the board examinations.
"Sanskrit was my second language. Now as per the new rules, preference will be given to students who studied Tamil. So will I get a seat in any of the good colleges in the city?"
Bound to encourage
His mother Vijayalakshmi says that making board examination marks the criterion for getting into a medical or engineering college is bound to encourage learning by rote.
"Questions are there at the back of the textbook," says Santhosh. "From now on, they should include questions that require intelligent application to maintain the standards."
The Gujarat model
Will the Tamil Nadu Government's decision deal a body blow to the aspirations of a few thousand CBSE students as it has done away with the one normalisation device they always had over their State Board contemporaries?
The CBSE evaluation, every one agrees is tougher.
Till now the Central Board students had a fighting chance to enter the professional courses on the strength of the marks in TNCPEE.
Too many examinations
Now they are a helpless lot. Some among the CBSE educators feel some good has been done now as students had too many examinations.
They also cite instances of other States which Tamil Nadu could consider before it decides further in the matter.
Take Gujarat, for instance. G. Neelakantan, principal of the Sir Sivaswami Kalalaya Senior Secondary School, Mylapore, Chennai, notes that in Gujarat, the total number of seats was apportioned between the CBSE schools and their State Board counterparts based on the number of students who passed Class XII each year with 55 per cent and above. For example, if 2 lakh students pass the State Board and 20,000 from the CBSE, the seat matrix would be 10:1.
Two merit lists are drawn up for each Board — CBSE students will then have to compete only amongst themselves. Only theory marks in Physics, Chemistry and Biology are considered for the merit list. Thus, the merit list would be for 310 marks (70 x 3 (Physics/Chemistry/Biology) + 100 (Maths). If a candidate takes an improvement examination, 15 marks are deducted.
In case of a tie in the merit list, practical marks are taken into account. If a tie still continues, then Class XII English, aggregate percentage in Class X, percentage of marks in Maths and Science in Class X, percentage of marks in English in Class X, percentage of marks in Social Sciences and lastly the age of the candidates are considered in that order.
Thus, even if the percentage of seats for CBSE students was only 5 to 8 per cent, it assured them a fair deal as they competed within the same pool and were not at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the State Board students. ``The Gujarat model could be adopted with small changes for Tamil Nadu. The Biology score can be omitted for engineering admissions and the Maths score for medicine.
While a level-playing field is assured for all examinees irrespective of the Board they belong to, it is also considerate towards those candidates who drop a year for betterment of marks,'' says Mr. Neelakantan. The Tamil Nadu Government must explore such variables before finalising the process for admission, educationists say.
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