FYJC CET cancelled: Maharashtra students now worried about higher cut-offs

This year, Class 10 board exams across several school education boards had to be scrapped due to rising Covid-19 cases

While the Bombay high court’s quashing of the common entrance test (CET) for first-year junior college (FYJC) admissions ended months of anxiety, lakhs of students are now worried about the high cut-offs for Class 11 seats, as the admissions will now be conducted on the basis of Class 10 marks. Online registrations for FYJC admissions will commence from August 16.

Bombay high court

This year, Class 10 board exams across several school education boards had to be scrapped due to rising Covid-19 cases. Results for the Class 10 batch were instead based on students’ performance in Classes 9 and 10. This decision helped boost marks of students across school education boards. While the overall success rate of Secondary School Certificate (SSC) students was 99.5% this year, Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) students in Maharashtra and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) students from Pune region (which includes Mumbai) boasted of a 100% success rate.

The high success rate meant a rise in the number of students scoring 90% and above. Many ICSE and CBSE schools witnessed 50% or more of their batches scoring 90% and above. Similarly, figures made public by the Maharashtra state board revealed that in SSC, 104,633 students received more than 90% marks and 957 (including 32 in Mumbai division alone) got 100% this year.

“Every other student seems to have scored 90-95% in their boards, which will reflect in FYJC admissions merit lists. There is a good chance the first and second list across top colleges will end at 90% or above,” said Marie Fernandes, principal, of St Andrew’s College, Bandra.

Considering no exam was held for Class 10, the government decided to conduct a CET, based only on the state board syllabus, in order to bring students from all boards on the same platform for FYJC admissions. While the exam was optional, the state minister for school education had clarified that in the first common merit list, priority will be given to those students who take the CET. Nearly 11 lakh students had already registered for the exam, which was scheduled to be conducted in physical mode on August 21.

“When exams around the country have been called off considering the pandemic, the Maharashtra government’s decision to conduct an exam for 11 lakh students was wrong. We are beyond thrilled that the judiciary understood our plight,” said Tanisha Rai, an ICSE student.

“The problem was also that it was to be based on state board syllabus. My daughter dropped science as a subject in Classes 9 and 10 and then suddenly, the government was expecting students like her to study such a subject in less than a month to appear for the CET,” said Adar Daruwala, parent of an ICSE student.

“For a change, not just students from other boards, but even SSC students have scored very well this year. We were not sure if we would have the choice to skip the CET, especially after our results, because no one wanted to miss the chance to bag a seat in coveted colleges,” said Anusha Karwar, an SSC student from Balmohan Vidyamandir, Dadar.