Repairing CUET collateral damage

August 10, 2022 /Posted byqureshi_yasser

Mandated without adequate debate and preparation in the trademark style of the BJP/NDA government, the inaugural Common University Entrance Test (CUET) 2022 — promulgated as the sole exam for admission into undergraduate programmes of the country’s 45 Central universities — has made a disastrous debut, writes Summiya Yasmeen Mandated without adequate debate and preparation in the trademark style of the BJP/NDA government now mid-way through its second term in office at the Centre, the inaugural Common University Entrance Test (CUET) 2022 — promulgated on March 21 as the sole pan-India exam for admission into undergraduate programmes of the country’s 45 Central universities — has made a disastrous debut. The first phase of the exam held on July 15-20 in 554 cities countrywide was marked by chaos and confusion. The initial batch of 800,000 class XII students who wrote the new common exam for entry into top-ranked, low fees universities established…

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Tags: Access EW, EducationWorld August 2022

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“An uneducated Indian is not a free Indian. India’s education system remains trapped in regulations that reward compliance over learning and scarcity over opportunity. The solution to exam leaks, coaching factories and unemployability is not more licensing, but more supply. We need more schools, more colleges, more competition and more education entrepreneurs. A 21st-century education must not only impart knowledge but encourage questioning. India does not need fewer cooks in the kitchen; it needs more cooks, more recipes and fewer bureaucrats guarding empty plates.”

- Manish Sabharwal, The Indian Express, (2/6)

India’s examination system rests on a foundational assumption that the process is fair, even when outcomes disappoint, and once that trust erodes, the system loses its legitimacy. This is not merely a technical controversy but a credibility crisis, because digitising evaluation is not the same as reforming it. Technology can assist evaluation, but it cannot replace the intellectual responsibility that fair assessment demands. The controversy has shown that technology has not removed subjectivity or error, it has merely shifted them into a different format. Educational institutions cannot run experiments on students whose futures depend on these results, and the obligation is to anticipate failure before implementation, not offer explanations after the damage is done.

- P John J Kennedy, The Indian Express, (26/5)

Repairing CUET collateral damage

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