Board drops a bomb before tests

Barely 20 days before the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations, the board has informed students that a lot of what they had painstakingly learnt was wrong.

Students say they received circulars listing hundreds of mistakes — just history has 150 of them — in the state textbooks this February.

The date on the circular reads January 21. While some schools have just started distributing them, students in other schools have not yet received the corrections.

Corrections for the science textbooks have still not arrived. This, in a year in which students are dealing with a new syllabus and exam pattern.

“We have dispatched the corrections to schools in our division the moment the board sent it. I am sending a circular to remind schools to distribute them when the children come to collect their hall tickets or for oral exams,” said Basanti Roy, head of SSC Mumbai division.
About 3,20,271 students will appear for the exam this year. The oral exams will begin on February 25 and theory papers on March 11.

“This is ridiculous. I have spent the last three days trying to figure out the corrections while my exams are two weeks away. There are several changes from sentence errors to a change in the name of places. I am so confused,” said Pooja Sharma (name changed), who studies in a Dadar school.

Even more bewildered are students who have not got this set of corrections. “I have gone four times to my school in the past one month but have got nothing. I have no option but to ignore the corrections,” said Sneha Parikh (name changed), who studies in a Malad school.

With the study holidays on, schools are busy trying to get in touch with students. “The board has sent the corrections pretty late. We are calling our students today to collect the corrections. There has been a lot of confusion and students are worried,” said Father Francis Swamy, Principal, Holy Family School, Andheri.

Parents are more worried. “This is not fair. I understand that since it is a new syllabus, there will be corrections. But not at the eleventh hour,” said Seema Shah, a technology trainer whose child studies in a Dadar school.