Last-minute admission policies throw students off course

Anahita Mukherji I TNN

Mumbai: Alice in Wonderland (or Blunderland) could well be the name of a book on Maharashtra’s admission policies, which have been changing every year since 2008, and have been announced at the eleventh hour. Some policies have been passed a few weeks before the admissions started, and some have even been passed after the admission process began. And now, in the middle of February, weeks before the SSC, ICSE and CBSE exams will start, Class X students are clueless on the policies that will govern them later this year.

In fact, the government has just opened the floor for discussion on it’s new ‘best of 5’ policy for junior college admissions, which it hopes to introduce this year itself. In a bid to standardise the marks scored by SSC students and those of other boards, the government wants to introduce a system where the marks in the best five subjects are counted during junior college admissions for SSC students. But no final decision has been taken on the matter yet.

While the online admission system, which was made compulsory for Mumbai last year, was a bit of a disaster, the government had earlier said that it wanted to introduce the system across Maharashtra from 2010. But the state has yet to take a final call on the matter.

When TOI contacted Sanjay Kumar—who has been Maharashtra’s school education secretary since 2008—on whether any final decision had been taken on the admission front, he said that TOI was aware of what was happening on the matter. When we asked him why admission policies were being passed at the very last minute, the line went dead.

“The problem with the state education system is that it is being run by babus who don’t give a damn,’’ said Xavier Luis, the parent of an ICSE student who took the government to court over its admission policies in 2008. The government lost the case.

In June 2008, the night the admission process started for junior college, the state government floated a government resolution on its website introducing its ‘percentile system,’ which involved admitting students to junior college taking into account their ‘percentile rank’ calculated using a formula released by the government. The system was challenged in the Bombay high court by ICSE parents, schools as well as the ICSE board, as they felt the formula favoured SSC students. The high court dismissed percentiles, and asked the state government to come out with its policies well in advance.

That’s a piece of advice the government refused to heed. In 2009, weeks before the admissions were to begin, the government announced that all junior colleges would have to reserve 90% of their seats for SSC students. Once again the policy was challenged in the high court and later thrown out. “Admission policies should be announced at least two years in advance. This will give children time to switch schools, or for that matter states, before they reach Class X,’’ said a city parent.

“Of course, college admissions should be announced well in advance,’’ said the principal of a reputed Mumbai college. “I feel that, instead of coming out with policies to compare students from different boards, Maharashtra should work towards putting its curriculum as well as assessment system on a par with the national boards. In junior college, we do find SSC students lagging behind their counterparts in other boards,’’ said another college principal.