Increase in top scorers to raise cut-off marks: Experts

CHENNAI: The novel evaluation method used to arrive at the Class 12 State Board results has brought to fore some unprecedented figures. This year, a whopping 30,599 students have scored above 551 marks out of 600 in the science stream as compared to 1,867 students in the previous year.

Due to the huge spike in the number of students scoring above 90 per cent marks in science stream, the cut-off marks in government and government-aided engineering colleges are likely to touch an all-time high this year. Even the competition in the much sought after colleges will become intense as there will be manifold rise in the number of applications. Situation will become so tight that every decimal point will prove decisive for admissions, said experts.

“Engineering colleges are going to significantly increase the cut-off level. The competition is going to be very tough this year,” said Jayaprakash Gandhi, a career consultant. With no expansion in seats and improvement in infrastructure, accommodating so many top scorers in the colleges will be a difficult task.

Gandhi explained that there are more practical exams in the science stream which provided an edge to the students. Also, students who opted for science would have already got good marks in Class 10 and since it carries the most weightage in evaluation this time, science group students ended up scoring more. However, some feel that the increase in top scorers in science stream will benefit the engineering colleges, which struggle to attract students.

The ‘14417’ education helpline officials received a lot of calls on career counselling as many enquired about alternative courses if their child could not get admission in an engineering college. Even in Commerce, the number of top scorers has doubled. Last year, 4,437 students had scored above 551 marks; but, this year, it has reached 8,909. In totality, 33 per cent of the students (almost 1.5 lakh) have scored more than 500 marks, which is a phenomenal rise. 

Usually, every year, only 10 per cent of the students used to get more than 500 marks. “This year, the pass percentage is 100 per cent and adding to it the number of 90 per cent holders has also increased significantly, whereas, the seats in the colleges remain the same. Ensuring a seat in college to each of the pass student will be difficult,” said MG Ragunathan, principal, Guru Nanak College. Experts said that government will have to take measures to increase seats in colleges to deal with the situation in a better way.