In a bid to ensure that no class IX student fails and to secure 100 per cent results in Secondary School Certificate (SSC) board exams, the director of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education issued a circular on Saturday to all deputy directors in the state to order schools to conduct re-exams in the last week of June for those students who failed in their class IX final exams this year.
In December 2016, the state education department had issued a government resolution to reduce the drop-out rate of students in class IX. The use of an Accelerated Learning Method (ALM) was mentioned to arrest the drop-out rates however no provision of training on that method was provided by the government. According to data from SARAL, in April 2016, 1.54 lakh students from the state failed in class IX in languages, science and maths.
However, the circular issued by the director has not mentioned anything about the ALM. The schools will have to conduct re-exams in a regular manner and come up with lenient question papers for differently-abled students and those with severe illnesses like cancer.
Gangadhar Mhamane, Director of Secondary and Higher Secondary, Education, said, "There will be no separate training for teachers to conduct this re-exam. This decision was taken in 2016 and 2017 but the implementation is happening now. It was observed that schools are giving good results in SSC board exams but their school's performance of grade IX was poor. Sometimes schools also fail weak students in grade IX to achieve good pass percentage in SSC. Hence this decision has been taken after proper study."
Priyanka Rajani, principal, Vidyanidhi High School and Junior College, Vile Parle, said, "This is a good move and I welcome the government's decision. Even if we have to conduct the re-exams in the end of June, the students are not going to lose much time."
However, some principals are of opinion that the re-exams should have been completed in April instead of June. Prashant Redij, spokesperson, Maharashtra Principal Association, said, "If these re-exams are taken in April then these students will get ample time to prepare for their SSC board exams."
