Manü Chiero
Porba, Phek
Revision required in the ranking system: An appeal to COE, NBSE
The Nagaland Board of School Education (NBSE) recently announced the results for the HSLC and HSSLC examination, 2020 and along with it, released the toppers’ list. The board have, for the past years adopted the Dense Ranking System (DRS) or the 1223 System in ranking its toppers. However, the problem with this system is that, the list can become quite exhaustive even for a small list number. For instance, the top 20 list of this year's HSLCE-20 has more than 50 students which makes little sense. How can a person be ranked 20 when 50 people scored better? A student ranked 20 should only have 19 students scoring better than her/him. In this regard, I would like to suggest a more appropriate system known as Standard Competition Ranking System (SCRS) or the 1224 System, the difference of it from DRS is explained as under.
In the present system i.e., the DRS (1223), persons scoring the same aggregate receive the same rank, and the next person(s) receive the immediately following rank. In other words, each person's ranking number is 1 more than the number of people ranked above her/him that are distinct w.r.t. the ranking order. Thus if A ranks ahead of B and C (with same aggregate) which are both ranked ahead of D, then A gets rank 1 (first), B and C gets rank 2 (joint second), and D gets rank 3 (Third).
While in the proposed system i.e., the SCRS (1224), persons scoring the same aggregate receive the same rank, and then a gap (1 less than the number of people scoring the same) is left in the rank and each person's rank is simply 1 more than the number of people ranked above her/him. Thus if A ranks ahead of B and C (with same aggregate) which are both ranked ahead of D, then A gets rank 1 (first), B and C gets rank 2 (joint second) and D gets rank 4 (fourth).
Perhaps, it is time for NBSE to consider the 1224 System for its rankings in the upcoming years as it not only is the standard adopted in all other kinds of similar competitions but is also clearly a more logical and rational way of assigning the correct position in the sense that if two (or more) competitors tie for a position in the ranking, the position of all those ranked below them is not affected. Accordingly, an appropriate higher number of toppers list can be compiled (e.g., Top 50 for HSLC and Top 12 for HSSLC) without actually having to accommodate more number of people.
People like me have been anticipating this change for the past years but only to our dissatisfaction each year. We do hope that the prestigious NBSE will consider this suggestion in the coming years.
