As Class 12 students who wrote the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Indian School Certificate (ISC) did not appear for many of the examinations and still got marks for the same, the State government is mulling over ways to normalise the scores for second pre-university (II PU) students too.
Students will be admitted to universities based on these scores. For entrance to various professional courses as well, the Class 12 marks are being considered in addition to their performance in competitive examinations.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Minister for Primary and Secondary Education S. Suresh Kumar said that he would take up the matter with Deputy Chief Minister and Higher Education Minister C.N. Ashwathnarayan. “We will see what best can be done for the students so that it is a level playing field for all,” he said.
Many PU students had pointed out that they would be at a disadvantage as students from central boards were graded based on the performance in the papers completed as well as their internal assessment scores for the papers that were cancelled.
A PU student who hopes to get into a prominent college affiliated to Bengaluru Central University said, “The scores of ISC students are based on some of their best performances of the papers they have written and their internal assessment. So their scores will naturally be higher than ours. This needs to be set right so that the parameters of admission are fair.”
Many degree college principals The Hindu spoke to also said that they were confused about how they should conduct admissions. “For some courses we have admission tests and online interviews. But for courses where there is no entrance test, we have to look only at Class 12 scores. We know that in the current situation, this is not a fair playing field, but we cannot devise our own formula to normalise scores,” said a principal of a city-based degree college.