In a first, HSC board sets up helpline to motivate those unhappy with results, informs Anahita Mukherji

Updated on: Thursday, June 04, 2009

Mumbai: Nervous about your results? Worried that an 80 per cent won’t get you through to the college of your choice? Relax. For the first time, the state board of education will start a helpline after the results are declared for students who are unhappy with their marks, which will be released on Thursday. The number of the helpline is 27893756. “Our job is not merely to conduct examinations. We want to motivate students to do well in life and provide them with the necessary counselling to ensure their emotional wellbeing,’’ said Basanti Roy, Secretary of the Mumbai State Board of Education.

Students, though, have reason to hope, with results improving over the years. For the first time last year, the pass percentage for the HSC crossed 80 per cent. In another first, the HSC topper managed to touch the magic figure of 99 per cent, hitherto unheard of. “I feel that students and colleges are comfortable with the new syllabus prescribed by the state board, which includes oral exams and a greater degree of internal assessment,’’ added Roy.

College principals concur. “The internal assessment component, including math practicals, have definitely encouraged students to do better at the board exams,’’ said Kirti Narain, principal of Jai Hind College.

It’s not just the science stream that’s churning out high-scorers. Over the last five years, there has been a corresponding increase in the marks scored by the arts topper — proof that humanities is not a low scoring subject. Initially, when Environmental Science (EVS) was introduced as a compulsory subject, there was a great deal of angst among students and teachers, but with the subject turning out to be a high scorer, no one is complaining.

The state higher education department has received proposals to start 2,064 new colleges across the state. Of these, 145 proposals are from Mumbai. If cleared, they will add 17,371 seats to the city. There is also a proposal from existing colleges to expand the number of seats by 10,883. City colleges are hoping this will be met given the rise in the number of students sitting for the boards. This year, 2.61 lakh kids gave the exam, an increase of over 50,000 students in the last five years.

Toopers from Maharasthra

2008 - Kalyani Joshi, Latur, 99%

2007, Madhura Chaudhari, Wardha and Ameya Bhangale, Achalpur, 97.67%

2006 , Ojaswita Parate , Nagpur , 98%

2005 , Swati Tarwade , Latur and Shervil Patil , Kolhapur , 97.6%

2004, Narsinh Javalgaonkar, Latur , 98.5%

Educationtimes

In a first, HSC board sets up helpline to motivate those unhappy with results, informs Anahita Mukherji

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