In what could be termed a blow to the Kerala government and a breather for CBSE students, the High Court has ordered the former to extend the last date of application for admission to Class XI in the state syllabus from 22 May to at least three working days after the publication of CBSE tenth board examination results. The judgement has been issued on a petition filed by two PTAs of CBSE schools who contended that the presently fixed last date would offset the chances of CBSE students from applying for Class XI in schools that follow the state syllabus.
The judges ruled that as per last years statistics, 42,000 out of the total 72,000 who wrote the CBSE board examinations have applied for admissions to Class XI state syllabus schools. They termed the government view that extending the period of admissions would affect the academic calendar 'myopic' as the right of educations of students cannot be subordinated to administrative difficulties. They also said the government's suggestion to reserve 10 per cent of the seats is skewed against the CBSE students.
Many students prefer to switch from CBSE syllabus to state syllabus for their senior secondary studies as the latter is easier in comparison and students have a better chance of scoring high marks. The relative easiness of the subjects in state syllabus also leaves the engineering and medical entrance aspirants time to prepare. For others, better marks mean brighter chance to get into the reputed colleges which have 'cut off' marks as high as 98 percent.
This is the second time in last two months that the government has locked horns with CBSE norms in the court. Earlier, in the issue of making Malayalam a compulsory language till Class X, the government and CBSE school managements were not seeing eye to eye. As for the present case, it has come into direct conflict with the interest of the CBSE students.
