With the state board opting to include internal assessment in the final marks, students have outperformed their counterparts in earlier years
Students finally exhaled that long-held breath yesterday, with the Maharashtra State Board for Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) announcing the HSC results. And they are, apparently, better than ever before.
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Not only has the overall pass percentage including that of Mumbai division gone up, but the Arts and Commerce streams have also done better compared to previous few years.
The overall pass percentage of the state went up by almost 16% this year, and stood at 84.04%. Educationists say the par-excellence result is a result of a tweak in the system. “The board has made passing so easy for students that scoring well should not be difficult for most.
While earlier, all marks were for theory papers, now they are divided between oral exams, projects and the theory paper. Therefore, students are doing well,” said Marie Fernandes, principal of St Andrew’s College, Bandra.
Many principals stated that students were at ease this year as their score included internal assessment as well. Board officials said that regular training for junior college teachers on the upgraded syllabus has helped better the overall results of the state, but the new grading system played a significant part.
“We studied the results well and found out that both the Arts and Commerce streams have done exceptionally well because of the newly introduced marks system, where 20% of their total marks in each subject is based on oral examinations where they can score full,” said Laxmikant Pande, Mumbai division board chairman.
Indu Shahani, principal of H R College in Churchgate, said that Commerce students interested in pursuing a degree in chartered accountancy or one of the unaided courses have to do well in HSC.
“The HSC score is very important if students want to get a seat in the best Commerce college to continue with a B Com, or apply to BMS, BMM and other courses. Colleges do not have any in-house quota in the unaided courses, so students end up working very hard to score well,” said Shahani.
Colleges in the city were pleased with the results, but had a tough time finding individual scores of their students. The board is yet to release individual college results.
“Every year we only had to type in the student’s seat number to get the results but this year we also had to enter the student’s mother’s name, which was a tedious effort,” said Fr Frazer Mascarenhas, principal of St Xavier’s College in Dhobi Talao. Many colleges could not find their topper or analyse their results because of the same problem.
*All scores mentioned in the article are a combined total of fresher as well as repeater candidates