AICTE mandates 50 percent minimum marks in 12th class

AICTE has a mandate to improve quality of engineering education in the country. Its functioning over the years, particularly allowing mushrooming of colleges and lack of proper monitoring of these colleges has been strongly criticized. But this year, AICTE did one thing which will surely improve the quality of education. It mandated higher minimum marks for admission to Engineering Colleges. The new requirement is 50 percent for the Unreserved seats, and 45 percent for the Reserved seats. (It used to be 45 percent for Unreserved seats.) I definitely see merit in the new cut-off marks.

However state governments are not amused. They are under pressure from the private engineering colleges to do away with any minimum requirement of marks so that the load factor :-) can be increased in the highly competitive marketplace. In fact, some state governments have refused to accept AICTE rule and gone ahead asking the colleges to admit students with lower marks.

It is not clear whether the state governments can over-rule AICTE legally, but it is clear that AICTE cannot do much, if the state governments do no cooperate. AICTE cannot de-recognize all those colleges in a state which admit students with less than 50 percent marks, since that would be closing down most colleges, and playing with the career of lakhs of students already studying in these colleges. State governments know that, and therefore, can openly allow colleges to violate AICTE rules.

This is a dangerous situation. If states can play this game, knowing any step by the regulator will be so unpopular that it will not be able to do so, then states are essentially trying to get out of regulation altogether. Now, if these state governments were setting up their own regulation which was better than a central regulator, I could see a point (even then I would prefer that a legally acceptable mechanism is created for giving primacy to state government regulator). But if state governments will regulate using political process, that is, the minister and bureaucrats will take a decision to just ignore uncomfortable AICTE rules, then it is essentially saying that we will follow only those laws which we agree with. Just imagine what will happen to a country, if every citizen were to say this. There will be no rule of law.

So what can AICTE do. I suggest that it stops permission for all new colleges, all new programs in existing colleges, all increases in number of seats in existing programs, in the state that does not agree with the 50 percent minimum marks. After all, if you look at the logic given by state government, it is essentially saying that there is already excess of seats, and we must find ways to fill up those seats. If the state governments are publicly saying that there are excess seats, then AICTE should not allow any more seats in that state. Those who wish to start new colleges can do so across state boundaries, or need to wait for a couple of years, by then the pressure on the state government from the good colleges and from those who want to start new colleges will become more than the pressure from poor quality colleges.

What is wrong with our Higher Technical Education

Everybody agrees that the higher technical education in our country is of very poor quality. The top 10 institutes provide very good quality education. The top 50 institutes provide good education, and everyone beyond that is bad. Talking specifically of education in IT related fields, different people talk about anything up to 80% graduates being unemployable (that is, they can't even be trained).

People from industry would love to argue that this situation has come about because academia does not listen to them. They do not have curriculum in line with industry needs. They don't teach them the latest technologies. They don't expose them to live projects. They don't put enough focus on non-technical skills like communication skills, teamwork and what not.

I have a very different take on this. It is not that these institutes (beyond top 50) are not teaching their students English, or Dot-NET, or any other latest technology. The problem is actually worse. They are not teaching them anything.

Recently, I had a chance to look at some statistics from the CS paper of GATE 2010. The average marks were 12 out of 100. This is after considering the lowest marks to be 0. (In reality, the lowest marks were -21.33.) So, if we consider real marks achieved, the average would be around 9. And the median would be even lower,
around 7 marks. More than 10% of the students had negative marks overall.

It set me thinking. What would happen if we were to ask 1 lakh 12th class students to give GATE. I would guess that unlike BTech 4th year students, the 12th class students would leave most of the answers blank (and hence avoid negative marks), and only answer those 5-7 odd questions which s/he is confident about. (There were a couple of easy questions on aptitude. There were a couple of questions on programming that 12th class students have been exposed to. And there were a couple of questions which had so much information given that one did not need to known any computer science to get those right.) My gut feeling is that if we were to give the same GATE paper to one lakh 12th class students, the median marks may be only a couple of marks less than what has been the case with these 7th semester students.

It means that 7 semesters of technical education has enabled our graduates to get 2-3 extra marks (out of 100) compared to what 12th class students can get. Remember, GATE paper is about basic computer science only. It is not about the latest technologies. It is not about industry trends.

So the problem is very simple. There is no education going on in thousands of colleges around the country. These students are not being taught even basic programming, or data structures, simple algorithms, basic computer organization concepts, etc. And hence any attempt to improve the employability of these graduates by training them in communication skills, dot-net, java, software engineering, and so on, is futile. One has to first see how we can ensure that they learn computer science basics. Unfortunately, I have no solution to offer.

Another interesting statistics from GATE 2010 paper was that in several questions, the average marks received by the students was negative. As people who have given GATE would know, you get 1 mark for the question if you answer it correctly, and -0.33 if you answer it wrongly. The scheme has been designed so that, if people were to guess randomly, then the average marks obtained would be zero. (Assuming, 1/4th of the students will answer each of the four options.) If some people know the answer and mark it correctly, some have left it blank, and others have given a completely random answer, then the average score should be positive. If we take out those who have not attempted, and those who genuinely knew the answer, and consider the rest, 75% of those should (statistically speaking) give a wrong answer. And if you add those who genuinely knew the answer, the percentage of wrong answers should be less than 75%.

But, in some questions, more than 85% people (out of those who have attempted the answer) have done it wrongly. This is too high a number (compared to 75%, in a sample of 1 lakh) to be considered a statistical anomaly. I discussed those specific questions with a few colleagues, and it occurred to us that the only reason why this can happen is if the students are not answering it randomly, but are confident of the wrong answer being right. Which means that they have been taught the subject matter of that question, but have been given wrong concept or information (which is worse than not teaching at all).

Recently, there was a proposal to have an exit test for MBBS to ensure that the degrees given by all universities in the country are adhering to a minimum quality for MBBS. I think there is a need to have an exit test for all BTech in this country. That will be a sure shot way to weed out poor quality institutions.

Refund Rules for Admission to Engineering Colleges: Unfriendly to Students, Inimical to Quality

In April 2007, AICTE announced that all institutions imparting technical education must refund entire fee (except a token amount of Rs. 1,000), if a student withdraws before the starting of the course. On the face of it, this was excellent for students. But is the rule really student friendly. And does it promote quality education. Experience of past three years can help answer these questions.

This rule has enabled students to “book seats” at multiple institutions, since there will be no monetary loss on withdrawal. Most students and parents invariably wait till the last day to actually withdraw from the institution. If everyone, on an average, paid fees at even two places, and withdrew on the last day, one should expect about fifty percent of the seats to be vacant at the beginning of the semester.

As per AICTE, each institution is expected to maintain a waiting list, and offer admission from this list. But when do these students join. One needs to give at least a week for the admission offer to reach the students, the parents to arrange funds, seek withdrawal from the previous institutions, get train reservations, and come to this new Institute. Since there is chain reaction to this, the institutions have to do this for several rounds, and often the admission process continues for 5-6 weeks into the semester.

A very large number of students are shifting from one institution to another AFTER the classes have started, and as per the AICTE rules, these students may NOT get refund. AICTE rules require that if the seat has been filled up through the waiting list, then proportionate amount of fees be refunded. But here is the catch. If a college has 500 seats, and after all the rounds of admission, only 499 seats are filled, the college claims that since the seats are not filled, we will not refund the fee.

The rule helps good students. They can apply for multiple places and keep those seats till the last minute. The AICTE rule has given them an additional 2-3 weeks to decide where they want to study. But most other students take admission in the first college that offers them admission. As and when one gets admission in a "better" college, one shifts there. And since most seats get vacated after the beginning of the semester, most of the shifts take place after the beginning of the semester. And in such cases, there is no refund usually.

So more students are losing their money now than they were before this rule came into bring. More students are getting delayed admission, causing a lot more anxiety and stress. Also, since the colleges give much smaller number of days to join after the semester has started, a lot of people have hard time arranging large amount of money - and they lose admission just for that reason. Many students and parents have to catch flights, since train reservations at short notices are often not available. So a lot more money is spent by them.

The academic calendar at engineering colleges are going haywire in the first semester. Last year, NITs did admission even two months after the semester began. If the regulator of technical education in the country is not bothered about loss of several weeks of classes in the very first semester of college life of a large number of students in the country, then it is no surprise that quality takes a beating in most colleges.

One also wonders the sanctity of Rs. 1000. Why has AICTE been so magnanimous as to allow the colleges to retain Rs. 1,000. Apparently that is the processing fee. But generally, the admission process is hugely expensive with several advertisements in various newspapers, glossy brochures, and so on. The cost of admission is much higher than Rs. 1,000 that the colleges are allowed to retain. Why not at least have a more reasonable amount, which takes care of real costs on one hand, and acts as a small deterrent against booking multiple seats.

But the good part of this rule is that no one is complaining.

When parents used to lose Rs. 10,000 in every college, they used to complain a lot. Now, even when they lose a lakh of rupees, they only request. They understand that it is fair to lose money after the semester begins.

The universities and colleges are not complaining, except a few at the top end. Because they are able to retain more money under the new rules than they were retaining when there was no such rule.

Students are not complaining. While the rule increases the anxiety and stress levels, but at the end, everything is forgotten and what they remember is that they were able to officially miss classes for two months. (And, the only reason to join a college is to miss classes, something many people are not able to do at the school level.)

The airline companies are not complaining. By some estimates, their business have gone up by about Rs. 100 crores due to this rule.

But, unfortunately, even though everybody is happy with the rule, some people are trying to change the system. There are people who want admissions to largely stop after the semester has started. Their solutions include: Having joint counselling of IITs, NITs and other central government institutes, and perhaps include others as well. This will force you to chose between IITs and NITs early. Yes, it will help. But these people should realize that IITs and NITs only contribute 2-3% of the total engineering seats in the country. So unless there can be joint counselling of thousands of colleges, the problem will remain.

The solution lies in doing two things: First, the colleges should offer more admissions than the number of seats. They should estimate the drop out rate based on past experience, and offer more admissions accordingly. (This is how admission process works everywhere else in the world.) Second, the last date for significant fee refund should be much before the beginning of semester. So the rule may say that withdrawals till 1st July will lose Rs. 5,000, withdrawals till 8th July will lose Rs. 10,000, and thereafter for every week, an additional Rs. 5,000 will be charged. This will give incentive to students to decide early. Admission from waiting list should happen in the month of July. There should be no admission once the semester begins.

The supposedly student-friendly rule has wreaked havoc with our admission system, and it is time to change.

Poor gender ratio in IITs and other top institutes

I thank my good friend Salil Dave to have forwarded the following link on admission stats at MIT. Interestingly, MIT selects ~20% of the girls who apply and only ~8% of the boys - since more than twice the number of males apply than females, the net effect is that the incoming class has about the same number of boys and girls. Assuming that the applicant abilities are not a function of gender, this is a deliberate admissions policy to have a 'balanced' class.

I thought it was pretty obvious that neither the abilities of women are any less than men when it comes to science in 12th class, nor are their performance in engineering disciplines any less when it comes to engineering institutes. In fact, one can go over the results of 12th class board exams in any state in India, and one will find that amongst the top 100 or top 1000, the girls actually perform marginally better than boys. And, when one looks at performance of girls in engineering colleges, it has been reported that there is no difference.

Given all this, the obvious fallout is that if an institute is keen to admit the best possible students, it should try to have a class which is gender balanced. If your admission process does not result in a gender-balanced class, there is something wrong with the process, and it needs to be relooked into.

Less than 10 percent of the students admitted to undergraduate programs at IITs are girls. In view of above, this is extremely serious. There may be a large number of reasons for this serious imbalance. Parents may not want to spend money on coaching of their daughters, when they have no problems to do it for their sons. Parents may not want to send their daughters to far away places like Kota for coaching. (And there is no denying that most people who get selected in JEE today come in after a serious amount of coaching.) May be females can't take the stress of a single exam deciding lifetime of choices. May be there are other reasons as well.

It is important that IITs try to understand those reasons and then try to come up with an admission process which ensures that despite all such reasons, they still get the best possible students, which they are not getting right now.

It is interesting to note that such a problem exists only in the top 50 odd institutions (amongst engineering ones). The reason is not difficult to see. Due to coaching, the relative ranking of boys go up by a few 10s of thousands ranks. If we just look at 12th class performance, then, as we said earlier, in top 1000, there are 500+ girls and 500- boys (because 12th class exams are generally without excessive coaching). But in top 1000 of JEE or AIEEE, there will be only 5 percent girls. This percentage of girls keep increasing as ranks lower and at 50000+ ranks, one starts seeing about 50 percent girls. So all institutions who take the students from top 10,000 ranks would have the worst gender ratio. Institutions who are in the middle and take admission from ranks 10,000 to 50,000 primarily would have a better gender ratio, and institutes who admit students beyond 50,000 rank, would have no gender imbalance.

Any good university in the world will study the profile of students joining it, and if it notices that a certain class of good students are missing, it would study whether it is because they are not attracted to the university or it is because the university's admission process is in some way excluding them. In either case, some steps will be taken to remedy the problem.

The top institutions in India too should relook at their admission strategy and find ways to admit more girl students not because of some equal access issues, but because it will improve the average performance of the class.

Unfortunately, it is easier said than done. Particularly looking at IITs, the JEE has always been a holy cow. You can't criticize it. To argue that JEE has not been admitting the best students all along will cause major ripples amongst the alumni, because it is directly questioning whether they were the best. And no faculty member in IITs, in general, would want to admit that they teach anyone but the best. So there is no incentive to change, and as long as National Commission for Women is silent on this, so much the better.

So, changes in JEE are almost always pushed from the politicians and bureaucrats (and then we complain about lack of autonomy, interference, etc. if you don't fix your house, someone else will). And politicians have so far focused on caste based access. May be they haven't realized the gender-based inequity. But one day they will. I only hope that that day comes sooner than later, because a mechanism to improve gender equity will only improve the quality of students in IITs and other top institutions.

Now, the obvious question is what can be done. There are multiple ways to handle this problem. One is, of course, to make major changes in JEE so that coaching has less possibility of enhancing success in JEE. That is a very long-term issue, and I have written about it in my earlier blogs as well, and I really don't think a major well thought of change to JEE is possible.

The other possibilities are based on assumption that JEE will remain by and large what it is. One possibility is to give extra credits (marks) to women to compensate for the difficulties they in general would have faced in JEE preparation, and through this means increase the number of girls in the merit list. This is a standard way of providing easier access to disadvantaged groups in several countries. Even in India, there are instances of attracting sports-persons to a university by giving him/her credits (add something to 12th class marks before preparing the admission merit list). A prominent central university was giving preferential treatment to people from disadvantaged backgrounds in this fashion before they were forced to apply reservations.

And, of course, the option of reservation is always there, something that we all in India understand extremely well. What we can do is to look at the current ratio (say 10 percent), and reserve a slightly higher number of seats for women (say 15 percent). Let us do this for a couple of years, and study the performance of men versus women in these batches. If the performance of women is similar to men, then we increase the reservation to 20 percent, and so on.