There was once a time when a 75% score in the dreaded board exams would be cause for celebration. Then that inched up to 80%. By the time I finished school, only scores above 90% were considered as respected. Kids these days, though, have it harder. Nothing less than a full 100% would do for colleges—in the 2021-22 academic year, seven Delhi University colleges saw their cut-offs touch 100% in 11 subjects. Around 70,000 students had scored 95% and above that year. The Indian government, though, took cognisance of this and decided no more. No more insanely high cut-offs and multiple rounds of counselling making children jump through mindless hoops to secure a university of their choice. So it decided to introduce… another hoop. Called the Common University Entrance Test (CUET). The government claims that the exam would allow students from different state boards a level-playing field as “marks given by different boards varied widely due to the typology of questions and the scoring pattern”. The first iteration of the exam is already done, with nearly 90 universities, including 21 private and 12 state universities, participating. The ground reality, though, is far from simple. Students feel this adds to an already long list of entrance exams to prep for; teachers think students will end up dropping out of school to prep for the CUET; and schools think they will no longer be useful - they fear students might end up skipping schools for private coaching and sit for the exam directly. The cohort that’s actually happy about this move is the Edtechs. At a time when they’re facing a funding crunch, they’ve now got a new cash cow in the form of the CUET. Top Edtech players like Byju’s, Unacademy, & their brick-and-mortar competitors are racing to make an early move into this new segment, with many already offering a variety of courses.
