Two years of pandemic, the PU Department drafting complicated question papers and the assumption that all students would be passed, considering the prevailing situation, and an overall complacent attitude among students led to poor PU results for the fourth year in a row. Some experts have attributed it to learning gaps due to disturbed education in the past two years.
The second PU pass percentage failed to cross the 62 per cent mark for the fourth year, with Arts students failing to cross 50 per cent in these years. This year, 61.88 per cent of students passed the exam 72.53 per cent in Science, 64.97 per cent in Commerce, and only 48.71 per cent in Arts.
PU Board Director R Ramachandran points out this is the usual trend, though the low pass percentage could be due to learning gaps over the past two years. However, Minister for School Education BC Nagesh says the Board did not make exams easy by avoiding complicated questions, which brought down the pass percentage.
Another reason banks on the absurd: A senior Board official says some students, especially from the Arts stream, expected that all students would be declared passed, based on a degree of leniency shown by the examiners last year. Some Arts students had even sought cancellation of exams by Nagesh. So preparation levels may have been low, which ended in low results, he says. Although absurd, this was the assumption among SSLC students too.
Vijay P Rao, an academician, says there was a false sense of security and complacency among students, based on a feeling that valuation would be liberal, considering the pandemic situation. A parent says, “Due to the pandemic, while physical/offline classes were affected, online classes were not effective because either there was internet network disruption or no proper internet network in many villages. Only a few students had laptops, while most did not have smartphones,” he says.
“Colleges could not reach students, mainly in rural areas, with their online classes. It may be the reason for low results, especially for the three districts of Kalyan Karnataka region which remained in the last 5 positions,” feels Prof B Narendra, retired principal of MSI Degree College, Kalaburagi. “Due to the pandemic, it was difficult to reach out to teachers to clarify doubts or gather enough study material,” says a student.
Students were unprepared
Board and education department officials say some students were filtered in PU-I, but last year, all students from PU-I were promoted due to the pandemic. This year, the PU Board also relaxed the rule of minimum 75 per cent attendance to register for PU-II exams.
Enrolment saw 8,982 extra students signing up for the exams, compared to those enrolled in 2020. Many students who had not attended classes or prepared well, could not do well in exams or remained absent. At least 29,020 absentees were recorded, while 14,830 students missed practical exams in the Science stream, tugging down their scores.
Another officer says most government schoolchildren are from Kannada medium who opt to study in English medium when they enter PU college. So even if they pass in all other subjects, despite training with model question papers, they fail in English. This has also resulted in low results, officials said.
Teaching problems
An education expert says, “Most students who take Arts are from rural areas, especially those who studied in government schools. Their quality of basic education is not up to the mark, because in many schools, there are teacher vacancies. Teachers find it difficult to pay individual attention. As many as 40,061 students have been promoted with grace marks in SSLC this year. When these students come to PU, they lack the capacity to score good marks.”
Educationist Chandrashekar Gowda pointed out many colleges don’t have lecturers for all subjects. Lecturers are sent on deputation for three days a week, and in such cases, find it difficult to do justice to students of colleges, which affects education and results, he said.
Matter of scoring?
The chosen stream does not affect scores, says an officer. “We cannot say Humanities is not a scoring stream like Science and Commerce -- 38,415 students have scored full marks in 31 subjects in PU-II exams. If 14,210 students scored full marks in Maths in Science stream, 3,460 students scored full marks in Accountancy (Commerce), and in Humanities, 166 students scored full marks in History, 1,472 in Economics, 587 students in Geography, 80 in Political Science, and 85 in Sociology. Also, the top 11 students in Arts scored 591 to 593 out of 600. If those students can do it, the rest can do it too,” he said.
“Many students slipped into a comfort zone with long holidays during the pandemic and misused smartphones to play games or use social media. They did not pay much attention to lessons,” a parent said. “The hijab issue did not affect results, because colleges which had the problem and the students who had protested have all scored well,” an officer said.
IMPLICATIONS
University of Mysore Vice-Chancellor Prof Hemanth Kumar says that since all students were promoted without exams last year, they had increased the seats in degree colleges by 20 per cent. This year, they have reduced seats in all colleges. While the pass percentage is 61.88%, another 15-20% of students who would have failed in one or two subjects may pass in supplementary exams. So undergraduate or degree colleges are equipped to handle 75 to 80 per cent of students who pass PU-II, so the seats do not remain vacant.
IMPROVING SCORES
The quality of basic education in government schools must be improved, and vacant posts of teachers in schools must be filled.
Lecturers must conduct unit tests after each chapter so students study regularly and prepare well.
Vacancies in PU colleges should be filled so that pressure on teachers reduces and they can give more time to students to prepare well.
Parents should get children admitted to good educational institutions, and not compromise on quality of education
PU lecturers must conduct internal assessments for at least 40% of marks, and retain the remaining marks for exams
Group studies, remedial teaching where lecturers form student groups to teach individually, by paying more attention to each student, will improve results
Attendance should be compulsory, and increase offline classes for better results, especially in rural colleges
Inputs from: Ramkrishna Badseshi/Kalyana Karnataka Region; Prakash Samaga/Udupi; Lakshmikantha BK/Mysuru
