CHENNAI: Facing the first board exam without any blueprint and standard question papers, state board students struggled to score. Only 3.4 per cent students scored over 500 marks (roughly 82 per cent) out of 600 marks. Of the 5,22,352 science group students who appeared in the plus 1 exams, only 18,092 scored over 500 marks. Even in plus-2 exams, 11 per cent of students (59,920) who appeared in the science stream were able to score over 1000 marks out of 1,200.
Educationists and headmasters warn that this will impact chances of plus 1 students who aspire to join professional courses like engineering or agriculture in the next academic year. State government had announced that it would count both plus-1 and plus-2 marks while giving consolidated mark sheets for plus-2 students. “When other boards including the CBSE have adapted to friendly question papers and leniency in evaluations, the Tamil Nadu State Board has made it tough for students to score in the board exams. This will put them at a disadvantage while competing with other board students,” sources pointed out.
The Directorate of Government Examinations released the plus-1 board exam results on Wednesday. Of the 8,47,648 students who appeared for the exams, 7,73,844 passed. The pass percentage is 91.3 per cent.
Students of Lady Sivaswami Higher Secondary School sharing joy after plus-1 results were announced on Wednesday. (Photo:DC)
“State government has to come up with some solution next year. Otherwise, these students will stand to lose when they apply for engineering or agriculture courses which are based only on marks. Officials need to sort out this problem by either having percentile or moderation,”said career consultant Jayaprakash A. Gandhi. He also suggested that government consider only plus 2 marks for the next batch, following the poor performance.
P .Swaminathan, secretary, SRV schools in Namakkal and Tiruchy, said that the current batch students will get affected by the plus-1 board exams. “It will definitely affect state board students when they compete with CBSE students who do not have plus-1 board exams,” he said. He added, “It also raises a question about the quality of our education.”
However, government school headmasters said that this exam will definitely improve the quality of education. M.Ponmudi, president, Tamil Nadu Higher Secondary Headmasters' Association said, “Abolition of blueprint has resulted in the decrease of high marks. But it will eventually make students read a full book instead of selective topics. Thereby they will have conceptual clarity when compared to others.” Among the total candidates, 36,380 students (4.29 per cent) scored above 500 marks.
