This document discusses problems with the current college admission system in Pakistan and proposes alternatives. It argues that the current system is not talent-based and relies too heavily on final year marks. Instead, it suggests that students specialize earlier, have their marks from all years considered for admission, and have more freedom to choose their field of study. This would help ensure students' talents are developed and that one year of marks does not determine their future. The system aims to make admissions more talent-based and less reliant on chance.
1. Mark is not the only
criterion for college
admission
A debate in seek of a better admission
system in our colleges and institutes
2. Introduction
• The topic of our debate is very critical and we should discuss it
seriously.
• Let’s not make it a traditional discussion just to get marks.
• This is a common problem in our community and we should do
something about it.
• I hope that we come into a conclusion by the end of this
debate.
3. Current System
• We enter primary and secondary schools (1st to 9th grades) and
throughout all those years we study the very same subjects with
no differentiation.
• Our current educational system is not talent-based. It doesn’t
aim to develop students in their desired fields.
• When entering high school (10th to 12th grades) there are only
two branches to choose from: Scientific and literary. Even these
two are not enough specialized.
• Only your final marks at grade 12 decide which colleges you
can apply to.
4. Why we think this system needs to
be changed
• Studying subjects that you don’t like can reduce your energy to
focus on the ones you really want to learn.
• There are many students who are talented in an area but
because they’re not good at the other non-related subjects,
they can’t apply to that field, and so the community won’t
make use of their talents.
• One year marks don’t reflect the capabilities of a student.
• Maybe there’s a student who has high scores for all the other
years, but due to any kind of problem, such as health or family
problems they can’t get marks as high as they deserve for the
final year.
• Some students may not get as high marks as they could due to
the high amount of pressure they’re under throughout that year
and because of all the confusion and anxiety they may
experience.
5. How we can make it better
• Students should study all the subjects at primary school so that
they have a general information about the different areas and
to determine in what they're talented.
• At secondary school, students should continue to study all the
subjects, but this time with priorities. They should give more time
to learn the subjects they desire and their marks for those
subjects must be accounted more compared to the other
subjects.
• At high school, students should have the independence to
choose the fields of study that they’ll need for the college they
want to apply for. Not the traditional scientific and literary
branches.
• This way, students can get more focused on what they love to
learn and that makes them become more specialized and
successful in what they’ll do in the future.
6. How we can make it better
• Not only the marks of the 12th grade, but actually the marks of all
the grades should take part in deciding which colleges you can
apply to, in addition to which specialty you have chosen to study at
high school.
• All of this turns the educational system more talent-based rather
than mark-based or so called chance-based.
• Note: it is with the current system that we think mark shouldn’t be
the only criterion for college admission. However, with the system
we’ve been talking about, it is quite natural that your marks decide
your future because you have chosen for yourself what fields to
study.
• The governmental faculties have a limit to how many students can
admit, and here’s where the role of third party universities come in.
• Third party universities should also work under the instructions of the
government and must also be supported by them so that the
attending students would have to pay less for their degrees.
7. How we can make it better
• The idea that thinks one faculty is better than another must be
practically ended.
• All graduated students must be treated with similarly in terms of
monthly salary and chances of employment regardless to which
faculty they have graduated from.
• This will stop the community from forcing an individual to enter a
field they don’t desire.
We begin by stating that the final marks of a student at grade 12 shouldn’t be the only source of deciding their future and academic life, and this is due to the fact that students in our country are obligated to study certain subjects they may not like or they may not at all be related to their desired faculty. For example, if a student wants to apply for college of medicine, then why and for what reason must they study a subject like Arabic, Kurdish or even math in such very detail and they’re also obligated to get very high marks in them. So if a student gets very high marks in all of the subjects except for Arabic for example, that low mark in Arabic may prevent them from their dream of admitting college of medicine while he has got high marks in the related subjects. So all of the problem starts from the bad educational system that we have in our country. And to diagnose and detect the weak points about this system, we first need to know how it is, and then we’ll be able to decide how we can make it better.
1. For example, if a student passes the primary school with higher marks in math and science, and if another student passes with higher marks in English and Kurdish, then they would study the very same subjects again in secondary school without any degree of differentiation and without thinking of developing the student’s talents.