The 100 per cent cutoff for school-leaving science and humanities students hoping to gain admission to the B.Com. (Honours) course at Delhi University’s Shri Ram College of Commerce has caught the nation’s attention on account of its dramatic absurdity. The inversion of logic was perhaps best highlighted by Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah, who tweeted to ask if there might be students who can get a higher grade than 100 on 100 if the minimum requirement has been pegged at 100 per cent!

While the SRCC case has permitted a key point to be raised about the way our education factories go about their business, it should not be overlooked that SRCC is not quite alone in raising admission stakes to mind-boggling levels. Another college has fixed a cutoff of 99 per cent for a different course, and any number of other Delhi University institutions are also playing with fire when they ask for nothing less than 96 per cent even for the B.A. (Pass) course, leave alone requirements for an honours course in any discipline.
At this rate, very soon we might be looking at numbing statistics of youth unemployment within our system which is already groaning under the impact of Naxalism and other ills that plague an unhappy society. The new data of 24 per cent youth unemployment in the United States is raising deep concern in that country about the behavioural impact of the phenomenon that recalls data of the period of the Great Depression of the 1930s. But at least the American figures are a consequence of an economy on a sharply declining curve. In India, that cannot be the reason. The plain truth is that in this country we have singularly failed to provide good colleges in enough numbers that can take on the rush emanating from school-leavers of quality. In other words, we are looking at a supply side constraint. The grouse earlier was that we don’t have enough quality institutions to impart education in medicine and technology. Looking at parallels made it clear that a single top US university offered as many seats in some of these disciplines than all of India taken together. Now we know that the problem is not confined to engineering and medicine.
The question is: where will all the toppers go? To America obviously, in droves, and also to fairly ordinary institutions in Britain, Europe, Australia or Singapore, to name a few popular destinations. As a result of the outflow, the cost of education at foreign universities for Indians could shoot up, not to mention sociological downsides related to race attacks against Indians, as we have witnessed recently in Australia. Human resources development minister Kapil Sibal would do well to look at the totality of the picture when he speaks of the need for changes in both policy and present-day rules to cope with the bizarre situation being encountered at Delhi University. Quite clearly, if we don’t invest enough in education by opening more quality colleges, we cannot sustain the demands of a rising economy and will fall behind in the knowledge stakes, which is the stuff that will make or break nations in the 21st century. It might be useful to recall that former US President Bill Clinton had once spoken of the education sector in his country being a matter of national security. The case of Delhi University is important as students come to this centre of learning from all corners of India in large numbers. And if the pond is brimming over at DU, other universities in the country too would be catching the disease sooner or later for the rising overflow is bound to hit them.