Few Maharashtra board students score above 90%, tough admission battle looms

SSC students in the city may find it tough to fend off the challenge from other boards during junior college admissions as barely 2.5% of state board students managed to score 90% or above.

State board data shows that a mere 7,459 students in Mumbai and 24,994 students in Maharashtra (about 2% of those who passed) went past the 90% barrier. The number has almost halved from last year, when 14,523 students in Mumbai (5.1%) and 42,731 in Maharashtra (3.7%) scored 90% and above. Even in 2010, at least 13,456 students in Mumbai (4.8%) and a total of 40,928 in the state achieved the feat,

Most college principals were concerned about the fate of state board students during junior college admissions considering the fact that at least 30-40% students in most ICSE and CBSE schools have scored 90% and above.

Indu Shahani, principal of HR College said, "This is a matter of concern but over the past two years, we have noticed that the high cut-offs usually average out by the second merit list. Hopefully it will continue this year too, so that students don't suffer." She said that as results of other education boards get better with every passing year, top city colleges might be taken over by students from other boards. "This year, most students who graduated from degree colleges too have been from other boards," she added.

The fall in the number of top scorers will mostly have a bearing on the composition of top colleges.

"This will definitely impact the number of state board students in getting through to a college and course of their choice, especially in bifocal subjects. However, other boards have their own formula for calculating scores so hopefully, when they apply to junior colleges online, their scores might match the scores of state board students," said Shobhana Vasudevan, principal of RA Podar College, Matunga. She added that state board students might need a lot of counseling after the results. "For most students, their Class X scores are very important and if they fail to achieve what they desire, they are bound to get depressed," she added.

Rohan Bhatt, principal of Childrens' Academy said, "The numbers of top scorers in our school has definitely gone down. Many students have told us that they scored lower than expected in science, though other subjects were up to the mark." Gauri Dighe, science teacher at V N Sule School said clubbing science-I and II was extremely stressful for most students. People's Welfare School principal Hema Kannan reasoned the drop in number of high scorers to the fact that the upgraded math and science syllabus was a challenge for several kids.

With scores falling in science and maths, the overall results didn't present a pretty picture for many.

This year, the board introduced a new element in the curricula- High Order Thinking Skills - a section in which students had to apply knowledge from various chapters before they could answer the questions.

Shobhna Bhide, a teacher at Anandiketan, Nashik, and a member of the state's board of studies for science, said, "Till last year, the format of the question paper was such that every student who studied the text could answer all questions. But this time, the HOTS section required a lot of thinking. In the final count, performance in that section separated the really bright students from average kids." S Chakraborty, a teacher from an Andheri-based school, said, "Many science teachers have found that students performed miserably in science. Some questions carrying more marks were based on application. Those questions were easy, but our state board students were new to this pattern. Many must have found it difficult to attempt these questions. Also studying the whole portion for both section I and II in a day was difficult."

However, the success rate in most subjects has gone up. Last year, overall pass percentage plunged by 7% in the state, one of its reasons being the dip in success rate of subjects. This year, more students passed in all subjects. In English (first language), 97.7% of the total students passed, up from last year's 95.9% in the state. The success rate in languages like Hindi (90.4%) and Marathi (92%) also went up by a couple of percentages. The overall rise in the state's success rate is also attributed to the rise in students' performances in different subjects.