Good JEE rank,
failing first-year: IIT Roorkee struggles to find out why
An investigation by The Indian Express and
several interviews with key players — professors, students and administrators
at IITs — shows most of the students who were expelled were from reserved
categories.- Aug 5, 2015-
Here
was an excellent opportunity for the Indian Express (the so called newspaper
for the intelligent Indian) to highlight the moribund state of our higher education
system which at its extreme places the IITs at a pedestal; complete with all
the paraphernalia of a superstar; institutionalized by a fan following (both
parents and society) that would put the barmy army to shame; to highlight the collateral
damage it exerts on young minds who go on in pursuit of this stardom.
But
what did the Indian express do? No surprise! As is the wont today in mainstream
media they chose to analyze the reasons based on caste. Guess that’s what where
the intelligent Indian draws all his intellect from.
It
hands us down this gem of an analysis in the 2nd paragraph-“An investigation by The Indian Express and several
interviews with key players — professors, students and administrators at IITs —
shows most of the students who were expelled were from reserved categories (SC,
ST and OBCs) and scored average to high ranks in their respective categories in
the 2014 IIT-JEE (Advanced), the tough entrance examination “.
Having foregrounded the argument with this gem;
Lord Macaulay let peace be upon him, the express article comes out with one
more gem that seeks to polish the earlier gem-“Once
they began their IIT education, however, many of them were hobbled by a range
of factors: a lack of fluency in English, both spoken and written, that eroded
confidence and showed up in poor communication skills; and a more general
difficulty “adjusting” to the campus ecosystem. This has key lessons,
professors said, as IITs rapidly expand to meet the flood of students and
struggle to build campuses and attract faculty. A scrutiny of official records
of the first-year students — the batch had 1002 students in all — who failed at
IIT Roorkee shows: * 90 per cent of them were from reserved categories
(SC, ST and OBCs). “
Wow
game and set won 6-0 .Lord Macaulay
would have been proud peace be upon him.
With
an aim at matching Federer’s prowess at his peak ,the article makes further
effort to win the second set to love .It says “For
example, the JEE ranks of some of the students who failed — available with The
Indian Express — show that among the SC students who failed is one who got an
all-India rank in the top 50 (among 2,029 SC candidates who got into an IIT in
2014) and another who scored in the top 100 in the ST category (among 856 ST
candidates who got into an IIT). * Most General category students on the
list of 72 who failed had ranks between 3,500 and above 7,000, barring one who
had a rank close to 1,500. That year, the last general candidate to get an IIT
seat was ranked 9,290. Ranks have been approximated to protect the identity of
students. * All 72 fared poorly across the curricular board — the highest
any of them got in any subject was a C. “It shows there was no outlier among
those expelled. They had scored poorly in every course,” said IIT-R director
Pradipto Banerji “
The inference from this is that candidates
who failed their IIT exams from the general category had ranks between 3500 and
7000 whereas some candidates who failed from the ST category were in the top 50
ranks among ST students .So this fact should somehow support his main premise
said in an understated manner that SC/ST candidates were misfits in an IIT set
up. Because in the latter half of the article alludes to probable reasons of
failure and that has got nothing to do with caste.
Why make factual statements upfront on casts
without making any direct linkages
Any analysis would first start off with the
trend. In this case no effort has been made to look at the failure rate of prior
years to compare the trend of the failure rate.
Moreover the article mentions the fact that the
rank of the last general category student was 9290.A fair analysis demands that
the failure rate should be mapped onto the ranking of students irrespective of
caste. See if there is a correlation between ranks and failure rate. Generally
the cut off marks for OBC/SC/ST candidates are relaxed and they by 10to 40%
below the aggregate score of the last general candidate to be selected. So it
would have been worthwhile to map all the students on their scores and identify
the trend. A logical inference would be that the failure rates increase as you
go down the ranking (that is not rocket science).
However the article tries to muddy the water
by bringing in another irrelevant fact— that among the SC students who failed
is one who got an all-India rank in the top 50 (among 2,029 SC candidates who
got into an IIT in 2014) and another who scored in the top 100 in the ST
category (among 856 ST candidates who got into an IIT).This serves no purpose
for analysis, cause you are comparing the ranking of apples and oranges.
Need of the hour is to focus on steps in
improving the situation (which the article does talk about) and not bring in unnecessary
comparisons on caste.
Not to say that focusing on caste is irrelevant
it has its relevance where it leads to exclusion; but to bring it into discussion
on issues of higher education where
affirmative action have yielded stellar results in a grossly unfair analysis. Hope the
newspaper of the intelligent Indian realizes this
Note:In Part II of the series on August 6th ,The paper has made some amends by giving equal space to other factors
Note:In Part II of the series on August 6th ,The paper has made some amends by giving equal space to other factors
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