What’s next? Students await clarity on CET

Results for the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams were announced by the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) on Friday afternoon

Results for the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams were announced by the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) on Friday afternoon. While students were still struggling to access individual results till late evening, more are now worried about what lies next.

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With the stress of the common entrance test (CET) scheduled to be held on or before August 21 looming over their heads, students, as well as schools and colleges, are waiting for an official notification from the government to clarify all doubts.

“Past few weeks we’ve been studying hard to prepare for CET. But both the exam paper pattern and syllabus is so new to us that we aren’t sure which chapters to focus on and which topics to exclude. The past year has been a rollercoaster ride with several ups and downs and this journey still doesn’t end with our results,” said 16-year-old Riddhi Parikh, who scored 94.2%.

In the last week of June, nearly a month after school education minister Varsha Gaikwad announced that admissions to the first-year junior college courses will be based on a CET following which a government resolution (GR) was released.

According to the GR, an optional CET exam based solely on the SSC syllabus and consisting of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) for 100 marks will be conducted. This exam will be open to first-year junior college (FYJC) aspirants from all boards. Those who don’t want to opt for the physical entrance exam will be marked according to their performance in the internal assessment of class 10 results, irrespective of the education board.

“Students appearing for the optional CET exam will be given first preference during admissions to FYJC. After these admissions are completed, the remaining vacant seats in junior colleges will be allotted to those students who do not appear for the entrance exam,” said Varsha Gaikwad, state school education minister.

The decision to conduct a CET exam for FYJC aspirants was taken to bring about uniformity and comparability in class admissions, Gaikwad had added. Earlier this year, all school education boards including the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Council of Indian Secondary Certificate Examinations (CISCE) decided to scrap their Class 10 exams due to increasing Covid-19 cases. Instead, the boards decided to grade these students based on their internal exam performance for the current year and their performance in the previous academic year.

Many, however, are still unsure if the CET exam based on the syllabus of a single education board is fair to all students. “Whenever admissions are based on anything except class 10 marks, chaos has followed. The CET exam might be a good way to gauge a student but it is unfair to students of other school education boards who will now have to study a new syllabus altogether to be able to score well in the exam. After the debacle of result announcement by the state board, will they be ready to conduct a CET exam for lakhs of students within the next five weeks?” asked the principal of a south Mumbai college on condition of anonymity.

City junior colleges at present are also busy updating the internal marks of Class 12 students. “We have no time to think about class 11 admissions amidst all the work that is going into bringing out the Class 12 results. Teachers are reporting to duty almost every day to ensure results are announced soon,” said Marie Fernandes, principal of St Andrew’s College, Bandra. She added that to date, neither the school deputy director’s office nor the state board has not approached any college with information on how admissions to FYJC courses will be conducted.