Presidency scraps entrance exam

After missing the autonomous status, Presidency College has now decided to scrap entrance tests for at least six subjects

After missing the autonomous status, Presidency College has now decided to scrap entrance tests for at least six subjects including Bengali, Mathematics, Statistics, Philosophy, Sociology and Geology this year. Scrapping entrance test for other subjects is also being considered.
 
Presidency College was the first college to conduct an entrance test for admission into English department in 1964. Later, entrance test was introduced for students who desired to take admission in the Economics department and finally in 1971, the college made it mandatory for students to sit the entrance test in order to take admission in any department. The marks attained in the entrance test along with the Higher Secondary marks were taken into account before granting admission to students.

This year, the college authorities have decided to grant admission to candidates only on the basis of marks obtained in Higher Secondary. However, this will be done on an experimental basis only this year. “If we feel that the concept is working then, we will do away with entrance test altogether for all the subjects,” a college official said.
Some teachers feel that this will bring down the academic standard of the college and students with inferior academic credentials, might get an easy entry into the college. Some teachers said that this was done to let SFI gain ground at the college.

The college authorities however, refuted the charges. “We found that entrance test was not much effective in assessing the credentials of students. It was felt that the Board results of students, qualifying from any Board is sufficient to help them seek a berth in the college,” added a senior teacher.

According to sources, the proposal to do away with entrance tests had been long pending and the former principal, Mamata Ray, had even rejected it once.

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