Students stake it all for an entry into the IITs. Will an percent cut-off in the board exams act as a spoiler? Abhisekh Kumar scored 76 percent in his 10+2 exams and graduated from 80IIT Bombay with a cumulative grade point average of 8.34 ranking third in his batch. Kumar’s career graph would have turned out differently had the cut off for IIT JEE aspirants been 80 percent in the 10+2 exam ... a suggestion made earlier this month by Kapil Sibal, the Union Minister for HRD.

Abhisekh Kumar is an ordinary guy from Jamshedpur. He scored 76 percent in his 10+2 exams, dropped a year to prepare for the Indian Institute of Technology Joint Entrance Exam (IIT JEE) and cracked it in the first attempt. In 2006, Kumar graduated from IIT Bombay with a cumulative grade point average of 8.34 (maximum is 10), ranking third in his batch. He worked for a few years, didn’t like what he was doing, quit, and started eveningflavours.com, a Bangalore-based food & beverages portal, with three other IITian friends in February 2009.

Kumar’s career graph would have turned out differently had the cut off for IIT JEE aspirants been 80 percent in the 10+2 exam — a suggestion made earlier this month by Kapil Sibal, the Union Minister for Human Resource Development. Sibal suggested that students should score at least 80 percent (instead of the 60 percent required today) to be eligible to appear for the IIT JEE. This would ensure that they take their board exams seriously.

The Whole education system has to change for an 80 percent cut-off to be valid Three lakh people take IIT JEE every year; only 7,300 get through. Good marks in board exams would ensure that those who don’t clear have a back-up option. But the minister should think again. Here’s why.

Education and testing standards vary wildly across different boards. “There is no normalised board exam in our country; the CBSE [Central Board of Secondary Education], ICSE [Indian Certificate of Secondary Education] and various other state boards have different standards. While some are easy, in other places like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, students struggle to get 70 percent. If this [80 percent cut off] has to come then the whole education pattern has to change,” says Prof. Anil Kumar, Chairman, JEE 2010, IIT Bombay. This is one of the reasons why the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani, switched over to an entrance test in 2005. Add to this, the dilemma of students from small towns and rural areas. They do not have access to good schools and hence secure low marks in board exams.