CBSE keeps high-score trend going, undergraduate seat crunch feared

KOLKATA: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Class XII results, declared on Friday, continued with the trend of high scores set by the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), with several hundred students from top city schools scoring in the high 90s. Senior educationists felt this would give students of these two boards an edge in college admissions, while the crowded-at-the-top situation overall would deny many deserving candidates a chance at top-notch colleges.
CBSE has not disclosed how many from the region have scored above 90%. If, however, the results of prominent city schools affiliated to the board are anything to go by, there will be several hundred students from the city and a few thousand statewide who would have scored 90%-plus, by a conservative guesstimate. From Bengal, 99.5% of the 17,118 boys who appeared, and 99.8% of the 13,429 girls who appeared for the exam passed, taking Bengal’s overall pass percentage to 99.6, higher than the national figure of 99.37%. Nationally, the number of candidates scoring above 95% has increased from 38,686 last year to 70,004. But the number of candidates scoring between 90% and 95% has gone down from 1,57,934 to 1,50,152.

Archisman Bandyopadhyay of South Point School is the highest scorer in the country, having scored 499 out of 500. It is difficult to tell whether he is alone in this bracket, in the absence of a merit list, which no board has declared this year.
The HS council placed a little over 9,000 candidates in the 90%-plus bracket. Added to ISC figures, there are over 14,000 students in this group. After CBSE result, the figure would swell by a few thousands.
With the state asking colleges and universities to admit students on the basis of marks and prohibiting entrance exams and interviews, many more CBSE and ISC students would fancy their chances in the more sought-after colleges than they did last year, when high HS marks had blown away chances of students from other boards.
DPS Ruby Park had 418 kids in the 90%-plus bracket. Other city schools that had a large number of students in the 95%- and 90%-plus brackets are Shri Shikshayatan (71 in 95%-plus, 165 in 90%-plus); South Point (111 in 95%-plus and 273 above 90%); Lakshmipat Singhania Academy (7 with a perfect 100 in certain subjects); and Birla High School (56 boys above 95%).
College principals fear seats in many subjects will be taken up only by the 95%-and-above scorers. “Top colleges and universities in Kolkata do not have even 50% seats to accommodate those scoring over 90%,” said the principal of a south Kolkata college. “The liberal marking will lead to huge competition.” Another principal said this would lead to seat-blocking. “High-scores will apply in almost all subjects in many colleges. But they will join in only one course and block other seats,” he said.
JU VC Suranjan Das said he had given autonomy to each department to draw up a unique formula to gauge students’ aptitude, since admission tests and interviews are ruled out. “They are ready with their formulae,” he said.