More goof ups by the managers of education...

CARELESS MISTAKES

Board Emends SSC Texts A Month Before Exam, Says Marks Won’t Be Deducted If Students Don’t Follow The Corrections

Anahita Mukherji | TNN

Mumbai: Rattled parents and jittery teenagers faced with a few hundred corrections in class-X textbooks a month before the SSC exam can breathe a little easy. The SSC board, after sending out circulars with detailed corrections for several subjects to schools at the eleventh hour, has said it will ensure that students do not lose out on marks even if they answer questions without incorporating the corrections.
The SSC board released a series of circulars with corrections in history, civics, geography, economics and mathematics texts between January 8 and 21. Many schools received circulars only in February but there are others that have not got them at all.
“Care will be taken to ensure that students are not affected and do not lose out on marks in the class-X examinations,’’ Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education secretary Vinay Dakshindas said.
Schools that received the emended texts last week were left wondering how to get them across to students on a study break. “We photocopied the circulars for the maths textbooks and gave them to each student on Friday. But it was possible because they were in school for open day,’’ Holy Family School (Andheri) principal Fr Francis Swamy said.
Teachers are afraid that the whole list of emendments will unnerve students. “They are already tense about exams,’’ Anjuman-I-Islam’s Saif Tyabjee Girl’s High School principal Najma Kazi said, adding that it was not easy to distribute several pages of corrections for a school with a few hundred students in class X.
But SSC officials assured that students’ performance would not be affected by the corrections. “Students’ marks will not be affected even if they do not follow the correction sheet,’’ a board official said.
The current batch of class-X students is the first to have studied the new SSC syllabus. The new textbooks were delayed by over a month and, throughout the academic year, schools received corrections in texts for almost all subjects.
“There is a board of studies for all subjects that scrutinises textbooks for mistakes. The moment errors were spotted in the texts, we sent out circulars to schools,’’ the board official added. There were rules whereby action could be taken against textbook committees for goofing up, he said. “Minor mistakes may be overlooked but those who developed the texts will be held responsible for some of the more serious errors,’’ he added.
IT’S NOT DONE
THE CHANGES
The state board updates the SSC syllabus once every 10 years.
The process for this phase of updating started a couple of years back.
2008 is the first year that students are going to be tested on the basis of the new syllabus; so there will be two sets of question papers for all subjects (one set for repeaters and the other for fresh candidates).
New textbooks came in at the beginning of the academic session.
THE GOOF-UP
Officials now say there are lots of mistakes in the new texts.
An estimate puts the number of errors at a few hundred.
THE RESULT
Emended texts have started going to schools.
But several schools have not got the corrections; this, say teachers, may lead to a lot of confusion especially as most schools have already sent their students on study leave to prepare for the examination.
THE BUCK STOPS HERE
The textbook committee for each subject and, ultimately, the board must share the blame.