Students writing KCET: out-of-syllabus questionsAn education mess in this southern state which has appropriated its description as the Silicon Valley of India, has become messier. On April 8, the Supreme Court restrained the state’s Congress government from publishing results of board exams held in March for classes V, VIII and IX students of KSEAB (Karnataka School Examination and Assessment Board)-affiliated schools. Because the landmark Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, prohibits stressful formal exams for children in elementary (classes I-VIII). Now, another controversy has erupted over conduct of the Karnataka Common Entrance Test (KCET) 2024, the gateway for undergrad admissions into 290 professional education colleges statewide. Soon after 3.34 lakh class XII students wrote KCET on April 18-19, social media was flooded with complaints that test papers included over 50 questions which were beyond the syllabus prescribed for state board pre-university college (PUC) students. Several higher secondary PUC colleges (class XI-XII), faculty and parents’ associations have registered protests with the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) which conducts the test. KCET is a make-or-break competitive exam for PUC students because it determines admission into all professional colleges statewide providing non-medical higher education — engineering, pharmacy, veterinary science etc. Under a seat-sharing agreement between the state government and private professional college managements, 45 percent of seats in private colleges are allotted to successful KCET students at a subsidised annual fee of Rs.20,000-80,000 (cf. Rs.83,000-Rs.2.3 lakh). This year, an estimated 120,000 private college seats are available for top-ranked KCET students. According to aggrieved students and parents, several questions were taken from class XI-XII syllabuses of the pan-India CBSE and CISCE exam boards. They contend that this put the majority of students, enrolled in PU colleges affiliated with the state’s Pre-University Board at a disadvantage. Moreover, the state government had ‘rationalised’ the pre-university syllabus in 2023-24, i.e, deleted some chapters of textbooks to reduce curriculum load of higher secondary (PU) students. With the chorus of public protests getting louder while voting in General Election 2024 has commenced (the first round of voting in Karnataka concluded on April 26 and the second concludes on May 7), the state’s Congress government elected last May (2023) issued a statement on April 28 saying that KEA has been directed not to evaluate students answers to the 50 out-of-syllabus questions. “An Expert Committee Report has determined several questions from the deleted chapters of the rationalised syllabus of 11th and 12th PUC syllabus of 2023-24. Keeping in view the Expert Committee report and opinion of many stakeholders and the paramount interest of protecting the legitimate interests of the students in mind, KEA is directed to remove questions that are out of 2023-24 syllabus from the assessments, and assess (answers to) only the remaining questions. Two questions with incorrect solutions will also be awarded grace marks,” said the complex statement ruling out a re-exam. Moreover, “the KEA is directed to prepare a detailed Standard Operating Procedure for setting question papers for KCET”. Dr. M. Mohan Alva,…
