The targets are sick

Allopathic treatment comes under criticism, from the so-called alternative systems of medicines, for focusing on symptoms and targeting them instead of finding cure for the underlying causes. As I am not a medical practitioner of any kind, I do not know how far this criticism is valid.

Likewise, the population control policies that had targets to be achieved as their ultimate goals were pointed out to be severely short of development rationale. Here too, as I am neither an economist nor a development professional, I will be treading on thin ice if I were to join this chorus.

But, I do know that when it comes to targets, of the sick kind, nothing beats our school education system. Of this, even without being an expert in education, I can say confidently.

I read an article [1] that spells out the target marks students should seek in their Board Examinations, so that they would clear their first hurdle in the race to get ahead in life. Yes, I had used the words “race”, “to get ahead” most advisedly. The target, the  beyond the second filter, is beckoning you. What is it? Entrance into IIT.

But, you have to pace yourselves. You have to clear your school Board Examinations at a certain level of competence (I will come to this later). Only then, your IIT JEE marks, no matter how high or low it is, will be of any use. You can get to the second filter only if you pass through the first, the school Board Examinations with the proviso that you are in the top 20 percentile of your passing class, at the Board level. Top twenty percent, remember that.

The referred article is helpful. It points out the percentage marks that you should target. Tamil Nadu, at 78.1%; CBSE – 77.8%; Maharashtra -73.4%; West Bengal – 58%. The article is even more helpful. It says, “Once the student knows the percentage, he (or she) can prepare for entry into IITs accordingly.” Targeting going universal.

The article misses the point of shifting to evaluation of a candidate’s eligibility through percentiles rather than raw marks, unadjusted for variations. It says, after listing out the higher percentile cut-offs culled from preliminary data of Boards such as in the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh and also CBSE, “just [my emphasis] 58% in the West Bengal Board exam.”

The writer has blinders on and cannot see beyond percentage marks. Isn’t it obvious to her, as it is to me and to all the others who even cursorily use their minds while reading newspaper items, that at 58%, you, harboring under the West Bengal board, are in the top 20 percentile of your class? It is the same for someone under the Tamil Nadu board with 78.1%. This is the normalization that people, driven by politics or otherwise, have accepted. To claim, as the article implicitly does, that West Bengal board students have it easy is sheer nonsense.

The article makes it clear how that percentile normalization should be understood: after all state boards (ostensibly even CBSE) put up their percentage figures in the public domain soon, “an IIT aspirant can know how much he or she should [my emphasis] aim for in the boards.”  This was quoted as being said by Gautam Baruah, IIT-Guwahati director.

Note the word “should” and thank your stars that it is not the moral imperative “shalt”. What is the good director of IIT-Guwahati saying to the students, say, to those of West Bengal School Board?

Study only as hard as and not any harder than necessary to get 58% in your school boards, particularly if you are aiming for IITs. Once you are within the IIT system, you will be taken care of. This sounded very close to the sentiments expressed in an article by an Ivy League graduate I had read about the enabling (networking, influence peddling and, of course, on second thoughts, good education) opportunities that come with the privilege of attending an Ivy League school, say Yale University.

That is, the IIT brand name is most visible in the networks it affords its students to develop, not necessarily in the technical and scientific expertise they stand to gain through four years (it was five years in my time).

There is a second point, related to competence, to note in the new percentile based standards. In Delhi University, the fourth cut-offs for various courses in different colleges are still above 75%, if they are open. That is, the potential IIT entrant may not have got admission to DU courses of her choice! But based on her performance in the advanced test of IIT JEE, she may end up with Computer Science at, say, IIT Mumbai! (This is a distinct possibility if the scenario I sketched out based on the statement of the director of IIT-Guwahati is realized).  Tut, tut, what kind of elitism is that?

Were I to be asked for fixing the filter, I would have put in a condition like, “Must be eligible for admission to B.Sc (Hons.) in Physics, Chemistry or Math in these colleges of such and such universities (eligibility measured as per the first cut).”

The idea was to wean people away from target-fixing and aiming. These are for sports like archery, shooting and a few others. In the other competitions, the targets - your competitors - are all moving. The world record or the Olympic record is not the target but winning the gold medal is. If in the process you shatter the world record, so be it. Relish it as a bonus.

No matter what well-meaning people do, it comes back to raw targets. It is so in medicine, in population, in sports, and now in high school education.

That is I why I claim the targets are sick.

Raghuram Ekambaram

References

1.    New IIT entrance test, cut-offs to vary widely across the boards, Vanita Shrivastava, Hindustan Times, July 16, 2012 (http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/In-new-IIT-entrance-test-cut-offs-to-vary-widely-across-boards/Article1-889657.aspx)