CBSE XII science stream now dominating the result zone

Nagpur: The last four years have witnessed CBSE XII’s science stream make its way to the top position in Nagpur, in terms of marks scored by students. For a long time, it was the commerce stream that ruled undisputed in Nagpur as their students emerged overall toppers. This emergence of the science stream in CBSE XII can be attributed to the coaching classes having tie-ups with many CBSE schools, say academics.
Earlier, CBSE students would do an almost mass exodus to the state board for XI and XII because the attendance rule in almost all state board junior colleges was not being adhered to. Tie-ups with coaching institutes ensured that students spent time at coaching centres rather than in classrooms, while their proxy attendance was marked.
While every now and then a few activists and even politicians would raise the issue. It never really reached any conclusion because all stakeholders were happy with the ‘tie-up’ arrangement. Parents and students in fact preferred admission only in those colleges with whom coaching classes had an arrangement.
A senior education official told TOI that for any system or practice to collapse you need an unhappy stakeholder. “In any ecosystem, there are stakeholders through which the entire system operates. Here, the biggest stakeholders are parents, students, colleges and coaching classes. With parents themselves insisting on coaching class tie-ups, there is no way in the world this can stop,” said the official on condition of annonymity.
Now with many CBSE schools in Nagpur aggressively getting into informal agreements with coaching classes, the exodus of students to the state board has slowed down a bit. The impact of that is visible on the ground as the science stream’s overall scores keep rising.
TOI spoke to a few school principals, especially those who did not have tie-ups with coaching classes. A city-based school principal said, “Results depend on students mainly, other factors like coaching, tough question papers etc are secondary. Rise in science scores can be attributed to a plain simple fact that in some years the batch of students were exceptionally good else the non-coaching tie up schools would have never made it to the top.”
Another principal said, “Overall you will find the science stream dominating Std XII results due to the coaching impact.”