CET syllabus: ICSE, CBSE students irked
MUMBAI: Despite assurances from the state school education department that the reason for conducting a common entrance test (CET) for admission to firstyear junior college (FYJC) is to bring parity among Class 10 students of various school education boards, those from nonstate board schools echoed a different opinion.
On Friday afternoon as Secondary School Certificate (SSC) students were struggling to access results, those from ICSE and CBSE boards are still awaiting results from their respective boards as well as some clarity over the CET exam. “How can the state call this parity, when the syllabus for the CET exam is based only on state board curriculum? ICSE syllabus for subjects like social sciences, maths and science is very different from what is taught in state board schools, so how are our children supposed to compete with state board students when they haven’t studied the same curriculum?” asked Sharmin Poonawala, mother of a class 10 student from ICSE board.
Last month, an ICSE student approached the Bombay high court questioning the state board’s decision to conduct a CET exam for Class 11 admissions based on the state board syllabus only. “ICSE students don’t even study the same subjects as SSC students, and even the same subjects like History and Geography cover the different syllabus. How can the state board expect non-ssc board students to study and ace the subject for their CET exam? This is clear discrimination,” said the mother of another ICSE student.
Recently, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) directed affiliated schools to reassess and re-evaluate the marks given to Class 10 students this year. Avnita Bir, director principal, Podar Education, said, “The results this year and the evaluation process are very unusual, most of us schools have been asked to re-evaluate Class 10 assessment by the board. This could be one reason that the SSC results are much better this year, and efforts are being taken by CBSE to ensure that the outcome is not skewed in any way because there are many students who want to shift to the state board.”