Jumbling system in Intermediate practical exams may not be a reality this year as the government sees more disadvantages to the State students in view of the changing exam patterns of IITs, NITs and medical institutions in the country.
Minister for Secondary Education K. Parthasarathy held a meeting with officials and professors of various universities to elicit their views and several people expressed their opinions against the jumbling system while some argued on the advantages. They felt that since only 60 marks were earmarked for practical exams out of the total 1,000 marks, jumbling will not play a major role in deciding the ranks.
A senior official said that students were already confused and under pressure due to the changes in JEE exam pattern for IITs and NITs that are giving 40 per cent weightage to Intermediate marks. Moreover, the marks normalisation process announced by the JEE was also challenged in the Supreme Court and students were still not sure of how it will be done. If jumbling was introduced the pressure might work against our State students, they argued.
However, they suggested a few measures like jumbling the examiners in all the colleges and appointing additional teams to monitor the exams, preventing scope for malpractice. The Minister will take the opinions to Chief Minister N. Kirankumar Reddy and arrive at a final decision in a few days, an official said. Teachers in the government sector and small colleges have been arguing in favour of jumbling system alleging that corporate colleges were manipulating the system to get easy marks for their students without exposing them to practical during two years of college.
