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Latest News |
| 15th
July 2010 / Times of India / Mumbai Edition |
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Now, colleges grapple with lost time
Institutes To Squeeze Admissions, Exams & Vacations
In A Tight Time-Frame, Calculating ICSE Scores An Issue
Too
The Supreme Court’s decision to allow best-of-five
scores for all boards in the state may have brokered temporary
truce, but colleges still have a colossal task on their
hands. For the third year in a row, learning has taken
a backseat to litigation leaving teachers and students
to figure out how to make up for lost time.
“Even though the judgement is very fair, it is really
sad that academics has taken a backseat over the past
few years,’’ said Usha Mukundan, principal
of Jhunjhunwala College in Ulhasnagar. She added that
amidst all the arguments over the best-five or the 90:10
and percentile controversies as in the previous two years,
the importance of Class XI education has been forgotten
in the bargain. “Last year also the unit test was
scrapped and the syllabus curtailed. This year we won’t
find it difficult to complete the portion, one can complete
a topic in either one lecture or 10 lectures. But no professor
will be motivated to go in-depth in any topic,’’
she added.
With the ICSE students also availing the best-five policy
now, colleges are gearing up to face the challenge. Many
colleges are assuming that since the entire admission
process will be done online this year, the government
will have to make the changes in ICSE marks before they
receive applications. “Since the government has
the online admission working, they will only have to make
the required changes and we might just verify the marks
later. I believe the colleges are also trying to work
out something to verify the marks but until we get a word
from the gover nment, we won’t know how to take
things forward. As of now, none of the colleges have been
informed anything,’’ said Manju Nichani, principal
of K C College in Churchgate. But Harsha Mehta, principal,
SIES College, said, “My IT department said this
can be very easily done by feeding a command to the computers.
Also, I have heard many ICSE schools are volunteering
to make the needed changes in the results of their students
so this will not take much time.’’ Most colleges
are waiting for a word from the government on the schedule
they need to follow this academic year.
“Science students are worst affected because they
end up losing time for their practical sessions. We might
either end up increasing the working hours by an hour
on a daily basis for these students or take only the experiments
in the labs and ask students to work out the calculations
at home to save time. Once we get proper directions from
the government, we will have better clue about all this,’’
said Pradeep Kulkarni, principal of Ruparel College in
Matunga.
Previous year, the government’s decision of scrapping
a unit test and cutting down on the portion did not go
down well with many educationists. “I think it was
a very bad decision to cut down on the portion for FYJC
students. Exams can be postponed or scrapped but what
has to be taught cannot be ignored due to lack of time.
Government will have to give proper directions to colleges
to avoid such mistakes time and again,’’ said
Naresh Chandra, principal of Birla College in Kalyan.
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