Education minister Vinod Tawde on Tuesday said the State government would speak to the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry regarding consideration of only the written examination marks of non-State board students for admissions to the First Year Junior Colleges (FYJC).
In a circular issued in 2017 , the State board had done away with internal marks for the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) or Class X students from 2018-2019 , unlike those from ICSE and CBSE boards. Experts and students had attributed the removal of internal marks as the reason behind the State’s poorest performance in six years at 12.13 percentage points in the results declared last week.
Principals of junior colleges and parents told Mr. Tawde on Tuesday that students of ICSE and CBSE should be given admissions to junior colleges based on marks scored in written examinations only.
Officials from the school education department and principals of around 15 schools were present at the meeting.
While expressing fears over SSC students not getting priority in the FYJC admissions, parents and principals of junior colleges told the government that all candidates applying for junior colleges can be brought at a par on the basis of written exam scores only.
“FYJC admissions in the last few years have not more than 7 to 9 students applying from IGSCE and IB boards, while around 4.5% students from the CBSE and ICSE boards apply. We are looking into how injustice can be avoided for SSC students. We will speak to the HRD ministry and both the boards in this regard and take a decision soon,” Mr. Tawde said.
Meanwhile, 40 more SSC students on Tuesday applied for photocopying and revaluation of answer sheets, the last date of which is June 29. Sharad Khandagle, secretary, Mumbai Divisional Board, said they had received 660 applications till Tuesday evening.
