SSC internal assessment in Maharashtra to be reduced to 20 marks

The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education has proposed to reduce the internal assessment marks of secondary school certificate (SSC, std X) examination to 20 from the next academic year.

The change will be applicable for science and mathematics subjects, board chairman Sarjerao Jadhav told TOI on Monday.

"As per the revised syllabus, the internal assessment for std IX is of 20 marks. It will have to be continued for std X as well. The proposal is not yet cleared by the government but the chances are that it will get the nod," Jadhav said.

At present, mathematics has 150 marks, including 30 marks for internal assessment. It will be reduced to 100 marks - 40 marks each for the algebra and geometry written examinations and 20 marks for internal assessment. Students would have two-and-a-half hours for the 80-mark written exam, Jadhav said.

For science subjects, currently, theory is a 60-marks paper and internal assessment is for 40 marks. But from 2013-14, the internal assessment will be reduced to 20 marks while theory paper will be of 80 marks.

The state government has decided to revise the marks weightage to bring parity with the CBSE examination pattern. This will help the government to resolve issues like the 'best five' calculations, which had caused controversy, he added.

Maharashtra bill seeks to bring new KGs, nurseries under government control

The legislative council on Tuesday passed a bill that will bring pre-primary education under its control. After the Maharashtra Self-Financed School Bill becomes a law any institution or person desirous of opening a nursery or KG will have to seek permission from school education department. More importantly, permission will be granted only if the applicant is ready to provide primary education too. This bill will not effect the existing nurseries and kindergartens.

The bill comes up for discussion in the legislative assembly on Wednesday and will be likely passed in this session. The provisions will come into effect from next academic session.

School education minister Rajendra Darda told the council that new pre-primary schools were being regulated to ensure that the 25% quota for poor under RTE was provided by private schools. "Many schools only admit their kindergarten II students to standard I. So if there is no control over pre-primary education then the schools will not implement the 25% quota in nursery and kindergarten and will finally say that they have no vacancies left in standard I."

The decision to regulate pre-primary education has not gone down well with the education fraternity. A KG principal, said, "It is unfair for the state government to start meddling in our affairs.

Basically we (pre-primary institutes) do not receive even a single dime in grants or favours, so on what basis is the government trying to dictate terms to us. Our industry survives solely due to quality and competitive fee."

This year, highest no of CAT takers from Maharashtra

Maharashtra has the highest number of CAT (Common Admission Test) takers this year. As many as 31,040 candidates appearing for the ongoing CAT for admissions to the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) reside in the state, followed by Uttar Pradesh with nearly 25,270 candidates, and Delhi with 21,507.

Of the 2.14 lakh applicants this year, the top five cities of New Delhi (21,224), Bangalore (19,553), Mumbai (16,895), Hyderabad (16,138) and Pune (13,368) constitute around 40.7% of the total registrations. Data released by IIM-Kozhikode, which is organizing the CAT 2012, states an overall increase in numbers across the categories. There is a 4.2% increase in the total number of registrations this year. The IIMs also witnessed around 8.6% growth in the number of girls registering for CAT in 2012. The number of boys taking CAT has gone up by 2.6%.

This year, there was an increase in number of candidates having two-three years of experience. As compared to last year, there is a 43% rise in the number of candidates having more work experience. The number of candidates from the non-creamy OBC, SC and ST categories has gone up too. The NC-OBC category saw a growth of 13.3%. "The shift in candidate pool in terms of gender and social balance, as well as work experience, is a positive indication that our society is becoming more aware of the opportunities available," said SSS Kumar, CAT 2012 convenor from IIM-Kozhikode.

Candidates from engineering stream, nearly 67.6% form the largest pool of CAT takers, this year too. Around 67.6% students are from the engineering stream.

Prometric, the firm that conducts the computer-based CAT, said 9,805 candidates candidates took the test on Monday. Both sessions have concluded and all candidates who started their tests have completed successfully.

Proposed amendments to Maharashtra Universities Act

The committee of technology-based examination reforms in state universities has suggested amendments to the existing Maharashtra Universities (MU) Act, 1994, to enable the use and integration of technology in the examination processes. Some of the key suggestions are:
There is a need to modify clause 32 (5e) of the MU Act to allow question bank or question paper bank systems. As of now, the clause states that: "The (exam) committee should obtain three sets of question papers in sealed covers in the respective subject. Chairman of the committee should draw at random one of such sealed covers containing question papers. The selected cover with seals intact should then be sent to the (printing) press."

Different universities such as the Maharashtra Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Science University ( MAFSU); Babasaheb Ambedkar Technical University ( BATU) and the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) have variations to the above mentioned clause in their corresponding acts, but to the similar effect. The clauses are needed to be modified to allow usage of IT in setting question papers with built in security measures.

Separate clause be inserted fixing responsibility on the pro-VC, dean or director of evaluation for imparting training to teachers and administrative staff on usage of technology, new trends in the assessment processes such as cognitive and summative assessment, creation and use of repository of questions, use of technology in paper setting and conduct of examination.

Changes needed to ensure that the controller of examination (CoE) or director of evaluation are part of the decision-making process instead of the prevailing system of being invitees on university committees. This will remove difficulties faced in recruitment of staff or availing of finances related to examination section.

Financial Requirement

For financing the information and communication technology (ICT) initiatives in state universities, the reforms panel has suggested that the larger universities, with surplus amount left from exam related revenue, may utilize the same for implementing IT initiatives.

Smaller universities may collaborate with the larger universities and enter into an agreement with service providers jointly. Due to a large number of students of both the universities combined and economies of the scale, the cost per student of the IT solution should be reduced in comparison to purchase of IT solution by smaller university on its own.

Smaller universities can share the infrastructure such as data centre, etc, of the larger universities and use in-house developed softwares of larger universities.

The universities may opt for either Capex-Opex or transaction-based fee models for funding IT initiatives. In the first model, the universities invest upfront in the capital expenditure (Capex) of deploying hardware and software solutions. In the following years, the expenditure is then limited to operational expenditure (Opex). In the second model, the universities employ services of a service provider whom they pay per use on number of transactions. The fee per transaction is fixed slab.

The committee has recommended that examination-related revenue should not be used as general revenue by the universities. It should be used only for examination related expenditure.

Maharashtra SSC 90% plus club shrinks, gives ICSE, CBSE admission edge

Maharashtra's SSC pass rate rose by 4% to 75%, and Mumbai's went up by a marginal 0.7% to reach 80.7%, but hidden behind these small successes is a slowdown. The number of students getting 90% and higher dropped by 41.5% in the state from 42,731 last year to 24,994 in 2012.

In Mumbai, the drop is by 48.6%, from 14,523 students last year to 7,459. Fewer students got 80% and higher too. Among those who cracked the exam, the largest chunk—45%—have scores of 35-59%. With most ICSE and CBSE students holding better scorecards, the upcoming admission season looks rocky for SSC students. Sports marks, best-5 gloss fades this year

For at least three years now, since 2009, it seemed like the academic world was riding a wave. With each passing year, the results were a bigger splash. The population of high scorers climbed as students milked every scheme visible on the horizon—whether it was the best-5 policy or the generous giveaway of up to 4% to sports stars. It seemed like the levees had crashed as a flood of 90-percenters came. This year, the count has dropped.

Like last year, 21,171 students applied for the additional marks in sports this year but it seems like the magic has faded off the additional marks granted and the best-5 policy. School education minister Rajendra Darda said the board would look into the factors behind the drop in high scorers. But most teachers reasoned that it was because of the changed format of science and maths papers, which included questions under a fresh section that required 'high order thinking skills'.

Sanskriti Merchant, from Fort Convent High School, scored 98% after calculating the best five scores. Merchant said, "This year, the science paper was totally different from the ones that we practised for, those of the previous years. Some of the questions were application based, where we had to really think. Also, problems were not from the textbook, like they usually are. Many must have found it tougher."

Sarjerao Jadhav, state board chairman, said the overall success rate had gone up in the state because the timetable for the exams was given well in advance and the exam was spread over a month, thus giving students enough time to study without stress.

Schools that managed to get a 100% result have increased. Over 2,500 schools in Maharashtra got 100% pass results, while 97 schools had the dubious distinction of not seeing a single student clear the board.

Meanwhile, the Konkan division, a new one culled out of the Mumbai and Kolhapur divisions, did best with a 90.8% pass percentage. Mumbai's pass percentage secured it fourth place among divisions, a drop from last year's second rank. On a more predictable count, girls outperformed boys.

Maharashtra government may consider allowing 'self-financed' schools

Maharashtra government is mulling over a legislation on allowing private players to set up schools on their own sans any government aid, provided they conform with the provisions of the Right to Education (RTE) Act.

"We have accepted the policy to give permission to schools provided they are within the ambit of the Right to Education Act," Minister of state for education Fauzia Khan told PTI after emerging from a meeting chaired by education minister Rajendra Darda.

The meeting was attended by NCP leader and presiding officer in the Legislative Assembly Nawab Malik, Congress MLC Mohan Joshi among others.

"If somebody wants to establish a school to impart quality education using their own resources and funds why should government prevent them from it," she said, adding provided such schools do not ask the government for any kind of financial assistance.

However, MLC Ramnath Mote from the Teachers constituency registered his protest to the move.

"The state government wants to incur less expenditure and do not want to give any assistance to non-aided schools," he said alleging that the proposed legislation to this effect would allow anyone with money to start schools anywhere he wants.