Mumbai
Edition, 15th July 2008
Non-SSC
Students Look To Bombay HC For Succour As It Decides What
To Do With The State’s Normalisation Plans
Mumbai:
Tuesday is likely to be one of the most important dates
of the academic calendar for about 17,000 students from
Mumbai who have just passed out of class X this year from
the ICSE and CBSE boards.
All the action, however, is going to take place outside
the classroom and inside one of the rooms of Bombay High
Court. Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar is likely to take up
for judicial scrutiny the state government’s attempts
to “normalise’’ marks of all class-X pass-outs
across boards after parents of some ICSE students filed
a public interest litigation against it. These parents have
alleged that the process is not fair to ICSE and CBSE students
and gives SSC students a headstart in the race for a seat
in a Mumbai junior college.
More than 12,000 city students have passed out of class
X from schools affiliated to the Indian Certificate for
Secondary Education this year; the number of students who
passed out of the Central Board of Secondary Education-affiliated
schools was 3,345. Many of these students have suffered
because of the state government’s efforts at standardising
marks, say their parents and educationists.
The formula the government worked out led to an average
rise of 4 per cent in marks of Mumbai’s 2.72 lakh
SSC students; but marks of ICSE and CBSE students went up
by only around 2 per cent after the “normalisation’’.
Besides the vagaries of the formula, the way the state education
department went about the whole process left hundreds of
high-scorers in the ICSE and CBSE examinations high and
dry. The plans were announced only after junior colleges
in Mumbai started selling admission forms and, by the time
the sale of forms was over, very few ICSE and CBSE students
— or even their parents — had realised what
was happening.
They went by last year’s cut-offs in colleges and
found that the rules of the game had changed drastically,
thanks to the state government’s attempts at “normalising”
marks of students of boards that had different syllabi and
different marking systems.
Hundreds of students found themselves nowhere on the merit
list of colleges of their choice or failed to get a seat
in the subject of their choice. And, worse still, they had
no way of going for lesserknown colleges as the sale of
forms was already over.
The situation, say parents of the affected students, is
particularly worrisome at homes where an ICSE or a CBSE
passout has failed to get into a college of choice despite
scoring in the 80s or 80s. TOI, over the past few days,
has spoken to dozens of these students.
More than 650 Mumbai students, of schools affiliated to
the Central Board of Secondary Education, have scored 90
per cent or above and 1,021 have scored in the 80s. The
percentage of high-scorers would be similar in case of those
from schools affiliated to ICSE as well, say teachers and
principals of schools affiliated to the ICSE board in Mumbai.
But it is not only ICSE and CBSE students who are unhappy
with the state’s “stepmotherly attitutde”.
Students of Mumbai’s international schools, too, have
complained of a getting a raw deal.
Their class-X scores will only be out in August and so colleges
are giving them provisional admission on the basis of their
“projected scores’’ or the grades they
have scored in their mock exams. But these scores are not
converted into percentiles as colleges say it’s difficult
to convert mock exam grades into percentiles.
LEFT IN THE LURCH
The
way the state education department has gone about ‘normalising’
marks of students has resulted in all-round chaos
DARKNESS
AT NIGHT
The
government website announces on 27 June its plans to normalise
marks of students from all the boards, the same day junior
colleges start selling admission forms. The notice, say
students and principals alike, is first seen on the website
only after college hours.
UNFOLDING
DRAMA
The
details of how the government plans to normalise scores
break out gradually over the next day. A section of the
media talks of a strange formula that is going to be used:
10 top scores of all three boards (ICSE, CBSE, SSC) are
going to be added up and then divided by 10 to give that
board’s ‘representative’ marks. The formula
works out to 100 multiplied by the total marks of a student
divided by 97.8 (for an ICSE student) or 97.74 (for a CBSE
student) or 96.12 (for an SSC student).
THE
SECRET FORMULA
Newspapers
across the city report in detail about the new formula.
But, even then, there is no official briefing by the state
education department to explain the intricate details of
the formula.
IT’S
TOO LATE
Colleges
close their sales counters for admission forms on 1 July
(Tuesday) even as students (and their parents) try to decipher
the government formula. Hundreds of ICSE, CBSE students
with high scores do not go the the second-rung colleges
at all because they are confident of getting a seat in a
college of their choice.
CUT
OFF FROM COLLEGE
Colleges
announce their first merit list on 3 July and only then
do ICSE, CBSE students realise what has hit them. Very few
of them are on that first merit list despite scoring high
marks. Anxious parents move Bombay High Court for justice.
89% but vocational science remains out of reach
Sixteen-year-old Pranay Bhargav is not just an average student.
He slogged for over a year to score 89 per cent in his class-X
exams. But he is learning the hard way that, in these days
of “normalised’’ marks’’,
even 89 per cent is not enough to guarantee him a seat in
a college or subject of his choice. Bhargav has just about
managed to scrape through into Jai Hind College in the third
merit list and, even there, has failed to get the subject
of his choice. The ICSE student from Lilavatibai Podar School
has taken admission in biology in Jai Hind College after
not getting vocational science.
Bhargav’s first choice was Mithibai College or Ruia
College and had also applied to D G Ruparel College, Sathaye
College and Jai Hind College. “Two of my friends who
scored about 89 per cent got into Mithibai science (vocational)
last year. The normalisation process has benefited SSC students
much more. But the ICSE syllabus is very tough and I, too,
have worked a lot for the score I have got,’’
he said.
82%
and still without a berth
Astudent from a Bandra school, affiliated to the Indian
Certificate for Secondary Education board, has gone into
depression after failing to secure admission in any college
in Bandra despite getting 82.71 per cent in her class-X
examination. “We are anxious and frustrated and we
are now just banking on the Bombay High Court order. We
applied to all the colleges in Bandra and actually went
according to the cut-offs that colleges used till last year.
We never thought in our wildest dreams that the scenario
would change so drastically this year,’’ the
girl’s mother told TOI on Monday. She felt that it
was unfair to compare two very different boards (ICSE or
the Central Board of Secondary Education with the state
board) and try and put the marks on par. “ICSE is
actually much tougher than SSC and requires a lot more knowledge
and analysis from students and a lot less mugging,”
she said on Monday. The court needs to know that this is
morally wrong. We feel so helpless right now. All we can
do is wait for a favourable order,’’ she added.
92%
but refused by 4 colleges
Rahul Nagpal has always been among the top three or top
five students in his class in school. And that consistency
is evident in his class-X performance as well; he has scored
92.28 per cent in his Indian Certificate for Secondary Education
board examinations. But Nagpal, who applied to five colleges,
got through into only one of them. He had applied to Sathaye
College, D G Ruparel College, Mithibai College, Ruia College
and National College for science (vocational). And only
one of them, Bandra’s National College, had a place
for him. Nagpal is already preparing to take the Common
Entrance Test for engineering next year. “What I have
scored, 92.28 per cent, is a good score. I thought that
I would get into any college of my choice with a score like
that,’’ he trailed off. He said he was keen
on getting into Sathaye College and confessed that he had
never thought that the fall-out of the government’s
marks-normalisation scheme would be so disastrous.
