ASSIGNMENT # 1 CASE STUDY ON THE BEST OF FIVE SUBJECTS SCHEME OF EXAMINATION FOR THE SSC

By:-

Akshay Vohra Roll no 125 MBA TECH IT Batch of 2012 Subject: Constitution of India

BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT RULING In the backdrop of the spate of suicides by students across the state and the growing concern among parents about coping with the pressure of studies, the Maharashtra Government is working out a new best of five scheme of examination for the SSC. The scheme, being worked by the School Education Department in association with the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, aims to relieve the pressure on students considerably by allowing them to choose five best subjects among the six which they can study and fo r which they can appear for the examination. At present, students of the state board have to compulsorily appear for all six subjects, namely three languages English, Marathi and Hindi besides Mathematics, Social Sciences and Science. The state has witnessed suicides by 13 students in the past 8 days and parents of the victims have attributed it to the pressure of studies as one of the compelling reasons for their suicides. The new concept is expected to be implemented in this year s SSC board examination to be held in March 2010 and authorities said the decision will be taken shortly. The best of five system is already in place in the CBSE and ICSE examinations and the idea to introduce this in the state was to reduce the pressure of exams from students at the same time bring parity between the state and other systems. Under the new best of five concept, students will have a choice to drop any subject which they fear or about whom they are not confident of scoring in the examination. While, the languages Marathi and English will be compulsory, students can choose three subjects out of four, namely Mathematics, Social Sciences, Science and Hindi.

The only difference between the best of five subjects pattern in CBSE exams and the state will be that, here in the state, students will have to compulsory appear for two languages, while in CBSE and ICSE only English is compulsory. Students usually fear Mathematics or Science and the state board authorities said majority students fare badly in these t wo subjects. If a student were to drop Mathematics or Science, he would not qualify for admission in the science stream, but he can certainly seek admission in the Arts and Commerce stream. State education Board chief, Vijaysheela Sardesai, confirmed tha t the state education department has asked the board to work out the best of five subjects scheme for the coming March SSC examination.

It s a rerun of the 2009 Class XI admission season. This year, too, the court battle over Class XI admissions is continuing, with some of the parents of ICSE Board candidates approaching the Bombay High Court against the State's policy of declaring the results through the Best of five system. Class XI admissions are delayed this year too, for the third consecutive year. The results of the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exam are already out with this controversial Best of five system.

Best of Five not for admission purpose

Last year, the government had come up with the 90:10 Quota system, and before that, the Percentile system. Both of them could not be validated in court. This year, as a precautionary step, the government and the SSC Board declared their new Best of five system in advance. It was declared in February itself, even before the SSC exam starts. Nevertheless, parents approached the court recently, which is yet to give its decision. However, State government took a different stand in the scheduled hearing. That the best of five systems was not implemented with an eye on the Class XI admission procedure would be a strong arguing point for the Government. The Best of five systems was decided and implemented not just for the class XI admissions. The aim behind the decision is more inclusive and broad. The decision was taken in the wake of exam pressure on students, the high suicide rate among students and other factors. The decision was taken to consider the plea of 16.5 lakh students of the SSC board. Students from other Boards are not more than 3,000-5,000 in the entire state. Their admission issues are limited to only few colleges in Mumbai. It wasn t taken just before admissions, as was the case in the last two years. They followed governmental norms to publish the decision online and seek public opinion about it.

Information on Best of Five was available online on the government website well before the results and even the exam. At that time, hardly 300 people responded out of which 75 % responded in favour of the Best of five scheme. The remaining 25 per cent suggestions were not totally against the scheme. They suggested a few changes.

Online SSC results reveal that languages are being neglected in the wake of the new best of five rule set by the State Board Language teachers in city schools are upset over the 'best of five' rule for SSC students. Understandably so, because report cards show that students tend to score less in language papers, like Marathi, Hindi and English, as compared to other subjects. Teachers are therefore worried that students will not pay much attention to languages after the implementation of this rule, because it will affect their best of five percentages.

Marathi is likely to take a hit. And if despite living in Maharashtra, students neglect their mother tongue, it will be a matter of concern. There will be no teaching jobs left in these languages, since very few students will opt for them anyway. In English medium schools, it is obvious that students will score less in Ma rathi, though things may change after nine years because the lot joining school this year will have Marathi as a compulsory subject. Starting this year, the state language is being made compulsory from Class One. Several school principals too are upset wi th the state board because the data usually sent to all schools each year, wasn't this time around. Students have checked their results online, but schools are still in the dark, at least officially.

After the Supreme Court Ruling After the verdict on the best-five formula was out, the implications were still unclear. After the Supreme Court gave ICSE students the option between choosing their best five subjects in Class X and totalling the scores of all seven subjects, the ICSE and SSC (state board) camps each had worries as well as something to cheer about. The SSC camp was happy that best -five stays, but some felt extending t he format to ICSE defeated the original purpose to make admission easier for state board students. But Best-five was introduced because the ICSE and CBSE follow a more liberal marking pattern. If ICSE also has best -five, then there will be disparity like earlier. The ICSE camp, on the other hand, was relieved to share the benefit given to SSC candidates, but students worried about their marksheets, wondering whether these would need reworking if they opted for best -five. The situation now is definitely mu ch better than earlier which was heavily lopsided in favour of SSC students. ICSE students will have an option now. If they are at an advantage by counting their best five subjects, they can go for the option. If not, they can stick to the earlier format where all seven subjects were counted. But best-five is not the ideal solution. At such a basic level if students stop studying one subject it can be a disadvantage to them later in life. Howeve r, since ICSE had anticipated this situation, they have made marksheets on the basis of the best five subjects (the total is 500) and also in the existing way, all seven subjects with a total of 700. Best-five is unconditional for SSC students, but it has come with many conditions for ICSE students. It is a misconception that Grade 3 subjects are high scoring (in the ICSE pattern). These are applications -based subjects like computer and commerical training which are equally tough. ICSE is not

entirely happy with the decision but since it is taken by the hig hest authority in the country they have no option but to abide by it . Across the state this year, about 16 lakh students appeared for the SSC exams and about 10000 ICSE students. ICSE parents are unhappy with the SC judgment, because they feel it comes with riders, particularly the group III subjects point. They want the best -five policy quashed. Following the Supreme Court (SC) order, junior college admissions in the state this year will be on the basis of the best-five policy. But the Maharashtra government is looking for a permanent solution to the admission chaos that ensues each year on account of the differences among the state and national school boards. In this context, the state is keenly looking forward to October when the case will be taken forward. The state board s contention is that ICSE and CBSE students have better scoring opportunities, and that the best-5 policy the government had adopted for SSC students was, therefore, justified. Under the system, only the top five subject-wise scores (out of six) would count in any SSC student s total. Counsel for the SSC board Harish Salve submitted that the policy was broadly known to the public, though some errors had crept into the government resolution. The Bombay High Court had struck down the policy on th e ground that it violated Article 14 of the Constitution, dealing with the right to equal opportunity. The Supreme Court asked Salve for his arguments on this count. The government in its special leave petition has said students had prepared in a manner to suit the amended marking system, and striking down of the policy would be unfair. Special counsel P P Rao and state counsel Nitin Deshpande had sought an interim stay as the admission had been stalled till July 10, but the Supreme Court declined to grant a stay last week on the HC order. Amidst utter confusion over the differential criteria adopted for the junior college admissions, the Supreme Court on Monday asked the state

government to file an affidavit explaining its decision of introducing the best five rule for SSC students. During the two-hour hearing of the case, senior counsel Harish Salve defended the government s decision in bringing out the rule which the Bombay high court had struck down as discriminatory . Justices VS Sirpurkar and Cyriac Joseph said they were not keen on examining the board s powers to frame guidelines. However, they were interested in examining the merit of SSC students who passed in all six subjects and ICSE students who passed five subjects out of seven. The judges felt the ICSE board s system was also discriminatory as one student may study hard and secure a certain percentage, but his other classmates who concentrate only on five subjects and fail in two may score higher marks. Salve contended there was lack of uniformit y in the education sector all over the country. The judges observed that if the dichotomy seen in the best -five case could be resolved by an amendment in law, it would be of great redress to students. Students are students. Let s not describe them as their [ICSE] students and our students [SSC]. Under the policy, an SSC student's top five scores in six subjects are considered while calculating his percentage. The Bombay high court on Thursday came to the rescue of students appearing for Std X exams from boards other than the state board. The HC has stayed the government s controversial move to favour sons-of the soil by issuing a GR on best of five policy for state board students. As per the GR of February, marks obtained in any five subjects out of six in the SSC exams would be taken into account for admission to Std XI.

On the flip side, the best of five policy would not be applicable to other board students. The students from CBSE and ICSE would have marks of all their subjects considered.

The ICSE students would have suffered the most as they have to struggle with seven subjects, while CBSE students has six. The GR as well as the court stay have evoked a mixed reaction from principals, parents and students alike. It will create a negative impact on students. Even though there are some who give equal attention to all subjects, most of them only prepare for the five and hope they will be counted. Such students will find it extremely difficult to get admission into colleges. The most obvious result is that more students will gravitate towards the state board. The standard of education in an ICSE school is higher than any other board. So irrespective of the ruling ICSE students will have an edge over others. If the state government s GR stands as it is, students from outside Maharashtra would have no choice but to give up their dream of joining junior colleges in the state board. If the reservation for domicile isn t bad enough this has made it impossible to study in Maharashtra. Applying i n other cities seems to be the more sensible option.

Conclusion

The Supreme Court is fully apt in its judgement as it is treating all the students equal and that is the fundamental right of each and every individual in this country. Although the state has to safeguard its own students this has become a battle of the state v/s the nation that is evident in each and every thing being done in this state because the government is bound by the people who do not see equality and still in this country we call independent, the state in the name of safeguarding it s so called regional values is still keeping the future of so many students in misery by taking up such steps . Two solutions can be proposed for this matter. They are as follows: The first alternative is allocating seats in junior colleges on the basis of the proportion of applications received from students of different boards. The second suggests a ratio that aims at equalising marks of students from different boards