Starting this year, around 1,000 students from the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) board, who have applied for admissions to various junior colleges in the city, might not be able to do so as the education department has stopped accepting predicted or provisional scores for admissions. Deputy director of education, Mumbai region, Rajendra Ahire said “Predicted scores cannot be accepted and students need to furnish their originals during admissions.”
As per the admission booklet for 2019, students from the other boards “can participate in this admission process with their provisional marksheets. However, they need to submit original copy of marksheet while confirming their admission in the junior college”. The norm has left several students from the IGCSE board in a lurch as students who have appeared for the May series of exams will get their marksheets only in August, by which most admission rounds for first-year junior college (FYJC) would have been completed.
“Even as the names of our children reflected in the lists, they were turned away at the time of admission due to the new directive. This would be an issue even in the upcoming general admission rounds as our students would not get their score cards by August,” said a Bandra-based parent of a student impacted by the changed guidelines.
Colleges said they are helpless. “We would give admissions on the basis of predicted scores until last year, but with the new directive we cannot. If the department revises it again, we would be more than happy to take these students,” said Ashok Wadia, principal, Jai Hind College.
{{/usCountry}}Colleges said they are helpless. “We would give admissions on the basis of predicted scores until last year, but with the new directive we cannot. If the department revises it again, we would be more than happy to take these students,” said Ashok Wadia, principal, Jai Hind College.
{{/usCountry}}Until 2016, the state education department required students from the IGCSE board to submit original marksheets to enrol in state junior colleges. In 2016, a government resolution allowed these students to secure admissions after submitting provisional marksheets with predicted scores of students. Predicted scores are an estimation of marks that the student would get in the examinations.
When asked why the rule has been changed this year, Ahire said, “I will have to check that.”
In 2018, 975 students from the IGCSE board secured admissions across various colleges in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). The education department does not have the figures for this year.