Teachable moments

CUET has merit but pitfalls too

The University Grants Commission has taken a broadly sensible decision to hold a mandatory Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for undergraduate admission to all 45 centrally funded universities from the upcoming academic year. This means Class XII board exam marks will be superseded for determining university admission in favour of an all-India exam on the lines of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for admission to technical undergraduate programmes or the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for undergraduate medical studies. A standardised test makes sense particularly in the context of the rampant grade inflation that occurs in board exams, yielding