In this article, I want to discuss the academic system and the way it functions in India. I feel that we end up giving undue importance to marks, percentages, and grades than they really deserve. That’s primarily because, as life goes through different stages, those percentages or grades that you got barely matter. I would go to the extent of saying that if they do not matter at all. Once you start working, it is largely your work performance that takes you ahead in life. That’s assuming that you’re doing a job, and if you’re not doing a job then it doesn’t matter at all even if you’ve been a failure at your academics. You can still be super successful. You can do any business of your own if you have the business acumen. If you can actually identify a suitable potential or niche, you can actually build on that niche and ensure that you work in that direction suitably, then I don’t think there’s anything that can come in the way. 

Having said that, the next question that arises is, what are these grades or percentages typically used for? If you look at the class 12 board exams, those marks or percentages typically determine the college in which you get your admission.

There was this instance where SRCC Shri Ram College of Commerce in Delhi, had a hundred percent cut off. So if you were a student who got anything less than one hundred percent marks in your class 12, even if you got 99, you are not eligible for admission. So, it made things easy for the selection of candidates. Now, that being the case, can you tell me, is there a huge difference between a student who has got a hundred percent versus a student who has got 99 percent? I mean if I have got 99 and you have got 100, is it necessary that you’re intellectually superior or academically superior to me? I don’t think so.

Now, the question that arises is how we ensure that this whole admission process takes place in a suitable manner? I feel that instead of giving so much importance to mark percentages, we must focus on CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average) of students. CGPA is a grading system used to measure the overall academic performance of a student. Institutions overseas, as well as many companies, prefer CGPA for placements because cgpa provides the overall academic score of students, whereas percentages are based on marks alone. Many countries around the world have taken up this grading system in their education system. But, in India, most of the educational institutions stick with percentages to grade their students. However, if your college is one of these, and you got your grades in percentage, you can convert your percentage to cgpa if needed. To do so, you just have to use some online tools like percentage to cgpa converter.

I wish we had an entire academic system that gave less importance to marks and more focus on learning. It is more important how much our children actually are able to learn, inculcate and imbibe what is taught to them and then use that learning in so many different ways.