Detoxifying India’s Entrance Examination System

Syllabus: GS2/Education

Context

• Recent controversies around paper leaks, irregularities, and opacity in major entrance examinations such as NEET, JEE, CUET, UGC-NET have raised questions about the credibility of India’s exam system.
  • With nearly 1.5–2 crore students appearing annually in various national and state-level entrance tests, the system’s efficiency, fairness, and transparency directly affect India’s demographic dividend.

Issues with Current System

• Psychological and Emotional Toll: Students as young as 14 are pushed into intense preparation, sacrificing adolescence, peer bonding, and holistic growth.
  • Constant competition and performance pressure lead to stress, depression, anxiety, and alienation, at times leading to tragic outcomes.
• Integrity & Security Concerns: Frequent reports of paper leaks and impersonation rackets (e.g., NEET 2024, Bihar/Jharkhand incidents).
  • Weak coordination between NTA, state agencies, and cybercrime units.
• Inequity and Social Divide: Coaching fees (₹6–7 lakh for two years) exclude economically weaker students and privilege wealthier families.
  • Urban–rural, gender, and regional disparities are worsened as students in smaller towns/villages lack access to premium centres.
• Merit Measurement: Entrance exams attempt to distinguish between negligible score differences (e.g., 99.9 vs 99.7 percentile), which is unreasonable and unfair.
  • A student with 70–80% in Class 12 PCM is well-suited for B.Tech, but the system demands extraordinary marks due to scarcity of quality seats.
• Limited Opportunities vs Huge Aspirations: 15 lakh aspirants for 18,000+ IIT seats creates an unrealistic funnel.
  • Scarcity of quality institutions forces overemphasis on IITs, amplifying pressure and unhealthy competition.
• Societal and Ethical Concerns: Students are reduced to rank-holders, not individuals with diverse talents.
  • Fuels toxic obsession with individual superiority, ignoring structural factors like privilege, access, and luck.
• Lack of Transparency & Accountability: Poor grievance redressal, delayed results, and opaque normalisation policies.
  • Lack of independent oversight over NTA functioning.

Steps Taken So Far

• Establishment of National Testing Agency (NTA) (2017) to standardise exams.
• CBT (Computer-Based Testing) introduced in JEE, CUET.
• Exam reforms committees constituted after every controversy.
• State initiatives: Some states moving towards school board performance-based admission models.

Global Inspirations

• Lottery-Based Admissions (Dutch Model): The Netherlands uses a weighted lottery for medical school admissions, introduced in 1972 and reinstated in 2023.
  • Students meeting a minimum threshold enter the lottery.
  • Higher grades improve odds, but all eligible students have a chance.
  • Relevance for India: Reduces bias and unhealthy competition.
    • Promotes diversity and fairness.
    • Avoids over-reliance on minor score differences.
• Curbing Coaching Dominance (Chinese Model): In China, the 2021 “double reduction” policy banned for-profit tutoring for school subjects, nationalising coaching overnight to reduce financial burdens, address inequalities and protect student well-being.
  • Application in India: Nationalise coaching if entrance exams continue.
    • Provide free online lectures, study materials and mentorship.

Way Forward (Detoxifying the System)

• Multiple Pathways & Continuous Assessment: Reduce dependence on single-exam filters. Blend board performance + aptitude testing + interviews for admissions.
• Strengthening NTA Governance: Independent regulatory oversight body with exam security experts.
  • Ensure third-party audit of exam systems annually.
• Equity and Social Mobility: To enhance equity, 50% of IIT seats could be reserved vertically for rural students educated in government schools, promoting social mobility and reducing structural inequality. 
• Academic Support: If entrance examinations persist, coaching should be nationalised, with free online study materials and lectures. 
• Student Exchange Programmes: To foster diversity, the IITs could introduce an annual student exchange programme, randomly selecting students to study across different IIT campuses over four years. 
• Mental Health Interventions: Mandatory counselling cells in exam hubs.
  • Inclusion of well-being modules in school curricula.
• Faculty Exchange Incentives: Incentivising the transfer of professors between IITs could also ensure uniform academic standards, dismantling artificial hierarchies and reinforcing the equal value of a B.Tech from any IIT.

Source: TH