Day Before Merit Lists For Class XI, Parents File Court Plea Against Marks Normalisation
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Mumbai: A day before the first merit lists for admission to junior colleges were set to be announced, a delegation of parents of ICSE students went to court against the Maharashtra government over its hurriedly announced marks normalisation scheme. The scheme seeks to put SSC scores on par with those of other boards.
“We have filed a prayer against the scheme in the Bombay High Court,’’ said Xavier J Luis, one of the parents who filed the plea on Wednesday.
The plea comes amidst unprecedented drama in the run-up to junior college admissions. There is an air of apprehension among ICSE and CBSE students, who feel that their SSC counterparts will unfairly benefit from the marks normalisation scheme.
A student from Kendriya Vidyalaya, Powai, said, “I have scored a distinction. But it will get more difficult to get into a good college after the normalisation.’’
The normalisation scheme comes in response to the feeling that SSC students lose out during admissions as students in the national boards score higher marks.
According to the normalisation, the average of the top 10 scores in a particular board is calculated. Then the overall score of a student from the same board is divided by the top 10 average. The resulting figure is multiplied by 100 to arrive at a ‘normalised’ score.
“The reason given for this system is that there is a general feeling that non-SSC boards, namely ICSE and CBSE, are more lenient than the Maharashtra board. So it is sought to give SSC students a level playing field. But the syllabi of the ICSE and CBSE boards are far superior, with these students often covering portions taught in the Maharashtra board’s FYJC & SYJC. So where is the level playing field? Where is the hard evidence required to come to such a conclusion?’’ asked Luis.
He said a democratic process needs hard evidence before an ordinance is passed. “No one does things based on general feeling,’’ said Luis. Parents of ICSE students feel the normalisation is “absurd and discriminatory’’. An ICSE student who got 85% said she studied for an exam that was harder than the SSC.
College principals, too, said the scheme is unfair. “The differences between students from the SSC on the one hand and ICSE and CBSE on the other begin to show up ins enior college,’’ said a college principal.
As Wednesday drew to a close, the tension mounted as sky-high cut-offs are expected, especially since SSC students got much better marks this year.
Some institutions like St Xavier’s College, Ruia College and D G Ruparel plan to put their merit lists on their respective websites. But in most cases, students will have to make trips to colleges they applied to.
Ruia College principal Suhas Pednekar said that his college had not received any guidelines from the deputy director of education’s office on how to upload the merit list to the online admissions website - mumbaiapplications.com toireporter@timesgroup.com
“We have filed a prayer against the scheme in the Bombay High Court,’’ said Xavier J Luis, one of the parents who filed the plea on Wednesday.
The plea comes amidst unprecedented drama in the run-up to junior college admissions. There is an air of apprehension among ICSE and CBSE students, who feel that their SSC counterparts will unfairly benefit from the marks normalisation scheme.
A student from Kendriya Vidyalaya, Powai, said, “I have scored a distinction. But it will get more difficult to get into a good college after the normalisation.’’
The normalisation scheme comes in response to the feeling that SSC students lose out during admissions as students in the national boards score higher marks.
According to the normalisation, the average of the top 10 scores in a particular board is calculated. Then the overall score of a student from the same board is divided by the top 10 average. The resulting figure is multiplied by 100 to arrive at a ‘normalised’ score.
“The reason given for this system is that there is a general feeling that non-SSC boards, namely ICSE and CBSE, are more lenient than the Maharashtra board. So it is sought to give SSC students a level playing field. But the syllabi of the ICSE and CBSE boards are far superior, with these students often covering portions taught in the Maharashtra board’s FYJC & SYJC. So where is the level playing field? Where is the hard evidence required to come to such a conclusion?’’ asked Luis.
He said a democratic process needs hard evidence before an ordinance is passed. “No one does things based on general feeling,’’ said Luis. Parents of ICSE students feel the normalisation is “absurd and discriminatory’’. An ICSE student who got 85% said she studied for an exam that was harder than the SSC.
College principals, too, said the scheme is unfair. “The differences between students from the SSC on the one hand and ICSE and CBSE on the other begin to show up ins enior college,’’ said a college principal.
As Wednesday drew to a close, the tension mounted as sky-high cut-offs are expected, especially since SSC students got much better marks this year.
Some institutions like St Xavier’s College, Ruia College and D G Ruparel plan to put their merit lists on their respective websites. But in most cases, students will have to make trips to colleges they applied to.
Ruia College principal Suhas Pednekar said that his college had not received any guidelines from the deputy director of education’s office on how to upload the merit list to the online admissions website - mumbaiapplications.com toireporter@timesgroup.com
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