Schools with poor success rate to get special assistance. (Representational)
Schools that recorded low success rate in the state board exams will be under the scanner soon. State education minister Vinod Tawde has called for a meeting with teachers and principals of schools where less than 30 per cent students, who appeared for the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exam, passed.
Tawde told The Sunday Express: “We are trying to understand where the gaps are. Sometimes, there aren’t enough teachers, sometimes there isn’t a proper infrastructure. Once we identify these gaps, we will try to plug them.” He added: “We will provide assistance to these schools to help them improve their performance.” These schools would be provided with additional resources — teachers, infrastructure and mentoring — to improve the success rate next year.
In the Mumbai Division alone, there were 25 schools in which less than 30 per cent students passed the Class X board exam — the third worst in the state. Thirteen of these schools recorded a pass percentage of 20 to 30. Incidentally, there were five schools in which none of the students passed — zero pass percentage.
The highest number of such schools were in Aurangabad Division, where 29 schools recorded a pass percentage below 30 and nine recorded zero. Across the state, there are 155 schools whose performance was dismal.
It is not the first time that the government will extend support to schools with an aim to improve their performance in the board exams. Last year, the state government identified schools in Pune Division that had low pass percentages. These schools were then provided with “special assistance” last year.
“We had trained the teachers of these schools, helped them with additional study material. It has worked, as the number of schools with below 30 per cent results has dropped drastically,” said Tawde. Only eight schools in Pune Division had below 30 per cent results, second best after Konkan and Kolhapur divisions.