Every year, nearly 70 lakh students in India appear for undergraduate entrance examinations such as JEE, NEET, CUET, and CLAT. 

• Since the number of seats is fixed, the competition has become extremely intense, which has led to the unchecked rise of the coaching industry. 
• Recent controversies such as the closure of coaching branches, financial misconduct, Enforcement Directorate raids, and the rising number of student suicides reflect the deeper flaws in the admission system.

Issues with the Current System

• Coaching Dependence: The high demand for entrance exam preparation has created a coaching empire where centres charge around ₹6–7 lakh for a two-year programme.
  • Students as young as 14 years enter this cycle, sacrificing their holistic development, hobbies, and peer interactions. 
  • The intense routines breed stress, depression, and alienation, with some students unable to cope with the burden.
• Unreasonable Precision in Selection: The JEE examination filters nearly 15 lakh aspirants for about 18,000 IIT seats, forcing students to compete for tiny score differences such as between the 99.7 and 99.9 percentile. 
  • The current selection model exaggerates competition and imposes unrealistic standards.
• False Meritocracy: The system privileges students from wealthier families who can afford elite coaching, thereby excluding large numbers of equally capable students from disadvantaged backgrounds. 
  • This creates urban–rural, gender, and regional imbalances. 
  • As philosopher Michael Sandel notes, such a system creates an illusion of meritocracy while ignoring the role of privilege and luck.
• Broader Consequences: The consequences of the current model are multi-dimensional.
  • Psychologically, students suffer immense pressure, leading to mental health issues and suicides. 
  • Socially, the system deepens inequality by making quality education accessible mainly to the wealthy. 
  • Academically, it distorts learning priorities and results in students being overqualified for basic undergraduate courses.

Global Models

• The Netherlands: The Netherlands introduced a weighted lottery system for medical school admissions in 1972, which was reinstated in 2023. 
  • Under this system, applicants meeting a minimum threshold are entered into a lottery, where higher grades increase their chances. 
  • This system reduces bias, improves diversity, lowers psychological pressure, and accepts that overly precise distinctions in scores are unnecessary.
• China: China implemented the “Double Reduction Policy” in 2021, which banned for-profit tutoring for school subjects. 
  • This reform significantly reduced the financial burden on families, addressed inequality in education access, and protected the mental well-being of students by curbing excessive competition.

Way Forward

• Simplifying Admissions: India should trust the Class 12 board examinations as the main criterion for B.Tech eligibility. 
  • A minimum score of 80% in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics could be set as the threshold. 
  • Students who qualify should then be selected through a weighted lottery system, where higher marks improve the chances of selection. 
  • Existing reservations, along with additional provisions for rural, gender, and regional diversity, can be integrated into this system.
• Enhancing Equity: To ensure greater social mobility, 50% of IIT seats could be reserved for rural students educated in government schools. 
  • If entrance examinations are retained, coaching centres should either be banned or nationalised, and the government should provide free online study material and lectures to ensure equality of access.
• Promoting Diversity and Integration: The IITs could introduce an annual student exchange programme that randomly allocates students to study across different IIT campuses during their four-year course. 
  • Similarly, the transfer of professors between IITs should be incentivised to standardise academic quality and dismantle hierarchies between institutions.

Conclusion

India’s education system faces a choice: continue a toxic race that scars students and society or embrace fairness, sanity, egalitarianism and equal opportunity. The path is clear.

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