There’s a rising wave of parental and students’ protest against persistent delays in the commencement of the academic year in Maharashtra’s 5,000 junior colleges, which admit an estimated 1.2 million Plus Two (class XI and XII) students annually. This year the academic year was scheduled to start on July 10, but the date has been postponed to August 28. Last year (2009), the academic year commenced on August 9. In short during the past two years teachers and students have lost over a month of the new academic year. Informed public opinion is unanimous that unwarranted interference by the state government — in particular its persistent efforts to tilt junior college admissions in favour of class X school-leaving students writing the state government’s SSC (Secondary School Certificate) exam — is to blame. An estimated 1.6 million students write the SSC exam every year, against 18,000 who write the class X exams of the Union government’s Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the private sector Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) in Maharashtra. But because the academic and curricular standards of the pan-India examination boards are higher, students writing the exams of these boards tend to bag a disproportionately higher number of junior college admissions. For parochial pride and vote-catching reasons, since 2007 the state government has been attempting to tilt junior college admissions in favour of SSC students. In 2008, the state government introduced its percentile formula under which junior colleges were directed to divide a student’s aggregate by the average of the top 10 students from that particular board, multiply it by 100 and use the resulting percentile for admission. This directive was struck down by the Bombay high court on September 26, 2008 as discriminatory. Undaunted in 2009 the state govern-ment introduced the 90:10 system under which 90 percent of the seats in junior colleges were to be reserved for SSC students. Once again the high court struck the proposal down as discri-minatory on July 6 last year. Nothing loath, in April this year, to the same end, based on the report of a committee chaired by the state’s education minister Balasaheb Thorat, the state government issued its ‘best of five’ directive under which junior college managements were obliged to assess the admission applications of SSC students on the basis of the average scores of their best five of six answer papers, while school leavers from CISCE and CBSE boards would continue to be ranked on the basis of their overall averages. Once again this directive was challenged in the Bombay high court by the parent of a CISCE affiliated school, which struck it down on June 23. Ill-advisedly the state government appealed the high court’s verdict in the Supreme Court. On July 13 the apex court passed an interim judgement on the best of five policy, directing the state government to implement it for SSC students but ordered it to extend the assessment formula to CISCE and CBSE school-leaving students as well. This annual display of populist petty parochialism is taking a toll on students who need to average high percentages to enter the country’s much-too-few undergrad colleges. “Our first semester will last only for 15-20 days, which won’t be enough for completing the syllabus on time,” says Mithun Siria, an SSC school leaver who has been admitted into the M.N. College of Commerce and Economics. Therefore, Siria has signed up with a coaching school. “My coaching classes started a month before junior college begins. This way my studies won’t be hampered because of the delayed academic session,” he says. While Maharashtra’s deputy director of education, S.C. Chauhan, says that the academic session of 2010-11 will be completed as per schedule, educati-onists tend to differ. Comments Fr. Frazer Mascarenhas, principal of St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai: “Junior college classes should already have begun by now. We are over a month late in starting and have to cover the entire syllabus. With these constant delays we can’t go deep into our syllabuses.” Adds Marie Fernandes, principal of St. Andrew’s College which is now processing junior college applications to admit an estimated 450 students into class XI this year: “The quality of education is suffering because of all this drama. Last year, admissions were delayed and the state government dropped the first unit test for first year junior college students. This is hurting the chances of our students doing well in the class XII exams next year.” Meanwhile educationists in Mumbai stress that the Supreme Court’s verdict of July 13 levelling the junior college admissions playing field is an interim order. In October, it will pronounce its final order in which severe strictures are likely to be passed against the Maharashtra government.
http://www.educationworldonline.net/index.php/page-article-choice-more-id-2314
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