Tanveer Sait mulls steps to control misuse of internal marks to boost results

Bengaluru, May 13: Primary and Secondary Education Minister Tanveer Sait, who announced the SSLC results yesterday, said that though government schools usually register lower pass percentage than private schools, government residential schools have done well.

“There were 19,506 candidates from residential schools such as the Morarji Desai Residential Schools run by the Minorities Welfare department and the Social Welfare department. We have a pass percentage of 92.28 in these schools,” he said. The model Adarsh Vidyalayas in the state, set up under the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), had over 3,000 candidates registering a pass percentage of 93.89, Sait said.

On the question of schools using the 20% weightage for internal marks to boost their results, Sait said. “There is a tendency to misuse internal marks to show better results. We will draw clear directions on awarding internal marks to prevent this,” he added.

Some PU colleges prescribe higher cut-off percentage to girls than boys when giving admissions in the first year PU. Sait said that the government would issue circulars to all colleges to curb this practice. “Everyone should get equal opportunities. We will direct colleges to refrain from this,” he said.

The minister said that the reduction in pass percentage could not be because of teachers’ vacancies. “There are 14,729 sanctioned teacher posts in government schools. But we recruited guest teachers for these posts to ensure that students are not affected,” he said. He assured that the government would be recruiting about 10,000 teachers this year.

To encourage students to continue their education and to make higher studies more accessible, Sait said that in clusters where there were more than 80 students in Class VIII, Class IX and Class X would be established and, where there are more than 120 students in Class X, PU colleges will be set up.