20-mark internals to return for SSC

Mumbai: In a relief to Secondary School Certificate (SSC) board students, the state government has decided to go back to the 20-mark internal system from the next academic year.

A hue and cry was witnessed after the SSC results had seen a drop this year. The students even faced difficulties in securing admission in colleges.

Minister for school education, Ashish Shelar, on Thursday made the announcement of restarting the 20-mark internal system in all language and social science subjects.

Mr Shelar said that a committee was formed last year to reconsider the internal marking system. “As per the committee’s recommendations, the state has decided to restart internal marks while written examination will be held for the remaining 80 marks for languages and social science.”

Admitting that doing away with internal marks caused problems last year, the minister said, “Now we are taking corrective measures and it will help the SSC board students who were found to be at a disadvantage.”

Parents of SSC board students had complained of their wards failing to secure admission in their desired colleges because of the state’s decision to do away with the practice of adding the internal marks scored in Marathi and other subjects in the total score.  Pointing out that the students of CBSE and IB are benefited by the internal marks system, the parents complained that the practice is putting their wards at disadvantage.

Meanwhile, Mr Shelar also announced a addition of a new subject ‘water security’. The subject will be for class 9 to 12. The subject will not have a written examination but will be graded. Water security subject will be incorporated in the Environment subject of the HSC syllabus while it will be added into syllabus class 9 and 10.

“Maharashtra will be the first state to include water security subject in their syllabus taking inspiration from Prime Minister Narendara Modi,” he said.

In Mumbai Division, a total of 3,57,055 students appeared for the exam this year. The highest number of students — 1,67,727 — had English as their first language; the next highest number of 1,32,117 students had Marathi as their first language. The pass percentage for English as first language fell from 97.86 to 90.99. For those who opted for Marathi as the first language, the percentage dropped from 90.96 to 78.42.