11-07-2025
- Politics
- New Indian Express
KEAM: State government move to ignore committee suggestion backfires
KOCHI: The state government's decision not to consider the Standardisation Review Committee's suggestion that implementing a new formula this year is not feasible has backfired with the High Court rejecting the last-minute change in the prospectus of the Kerala Engineering, Architecture, and Medical Entrance Examination (KEAM).
The committee's suggestion that 'introducing a new formula or making any modifications to the existing one would only be possible after thorough and detailed studies' was produced before the High Court following its directive. Though the government had admitted the existence of the report, it was not placed before the court earlier. As per the report, the government was asked to ensure that any new formula implemented is 'demonstrably better than the current one'.
However, the committee recommended that in the current year, the number of years should be reduced to 5 years for the calculation of 'overall mean and standard deviation.'
The committee suggested to revise the existing 50:50 weightage ratio currently applied between the normalised entrance examination marks and the standardised total marks/grades obtained in the qualifying examination (final year) to a new ratio of 60:40 (Entrance score : 60, Qualifying score: 40). This proposal regarding weightage ration was agreed upon by three members, while one member, Sivakumar, expressed dissent.
As per the report, based on the preliminary observations, the method that uses statistical parameters such as Overall Range, Group Minimum, and Group Range was considered by the committee members to be the most appropriate. But implementing the new method this year would not be scientifically appropriate, as a more comprehensive study is required to make an authoritative comparison with the current method.
It was also noted that the formula was tested using only a very limited sample and that the parameters used in the formula were derived from that sample itself.
