By Ashok Pandey
Streamlining the admission course of to all undergraduate programmes in all central universities, the Ministry of Education just lately introduced the Common University Entry Test (CUET-UG 2022). No ahead of the announcement, arguments for and towards elevating the decibels have been made. The authorities argues that the CUET will present a typical platform and equal alternative to candidates throughout the nation, particularly these from rural and different distant areas.
Those towards the CUET have legitimate reservations. The CUET shouldn’t be a problem, per se. Its hurried implementation with impact from the session 2022-23 has added to the woes of the present batch of board examinees who’ve skilled the worst within the final two years. As in earlier years, their board examination marks may have served the aim of admission to UG programmes, saving them the rigour of at the very least one entrance amongst a slew of such assessments they are going to seem for.
However, the first concern stays that the CUET preparation will open yet one more avenue for the thriving teaching tradition that has plagued the nation for a very long time. The NEP 2020 acknowledges that “the current nature of secondary school exams, including Board exams and entrance exams—and the resulting coaching culture of today—are doing much harm, especially at the secondary-school level, replacing valuable time for true learning with excessive exam coaching and preparation. These exams also force students to learn a very narrow band of material in a single stream, rather than allowing the flexibility and choice that will be so important in the education system of the future.” (NEP 2020, 4.36). It isn’t a surprise that inside days of the announcement of the CUET, hoardings, ads and WhatsApp messages providing crash programs and mannequin papers started to fill the media area.
Educationists throughout the nation are questioning that two years of essential studying expertise in courses XI and XII is already compromised beneath the alter of the JEE, NEET, CLAT, and a bunch of different entrance examinations outsourced to teaching courses. The NEP’s imaginative and prescient to develop a holistic persona, inculcate future abilities, important pondering, group work, volunteering and making ready the younger to be custodians of the planet will undergo an ideal deal if college students give attention to school admissions by the teaching route. The two essential years are an train by colleges to organize kids for faculty, profession and life. Focus on entrance exams and training might guarantee school admissions by accepting some and rejecting others. Nevertheless, your entire era can be disadvantaged of faculty expertise, energetic debates, road performs, social campaigns and quite a few alternatives for studying for all times. Hence the priority that class XII efficiency have to be weighed in school admissions.
As the CUET goes at scale and extra universities go for it, a lot session can be required to deal with the issues of the training fraternity, assembly the nationwide aspirations and worldwide benchmarks. The present scheme of the CUET depends closely on languages. The second part of language decisions contains many overseas languages. How these languages can be part of the curriculum shouldn’t be clear? UG programs require a deeper understanding of disciplines. Therefore, the standards for selecting optionally available topics’ partly 3-CUET have to be linked with college students’ efficiency at school XII. Also, selecting six area topics is worrying.
The imaginative and prescient of fairness and excellence within the society entails that teaching courses don’t develop into the obligatory requirement for college kids of the economically and socially deprived group for faculty admissions. The CUET might have good intentions, however it have to be a CUTE expertise as we roll it out.
The writer is a Delhi-based educationist.
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Source: www.financialexpress.com”