Rot in education: Students suffer as corruption, politics plague the system

In the season of examination results and college admissions, we are again reminded of the dismal condition of the Indian education system. The Punjab School Education Board has, in an act of benevolence, granted 30 grace marks to Class 12 students. This helped lift the state’s pass percentage from 54% to 76%. In Gujarat, the pass percentage in Class 10 dropped from 73% in 2014-15 to 63% this year — which the state education minister attributes to the installation of CCTV cameras in examination centres that have checked cheating. Many Class 10 students in Gujarat could not answer elementary questions in a retest, despite securing over 80% in the objective section of the mathematics paper.