CBSE students lose out in race for college admission

That Standard XII students of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) lose out on admissions in good courses, in arts and science colleges, because they start the race from much behind their counterparts from the State Board, has become a norm now.

With intense competition to admit meritorious students in the open quota and others in the management quota, colleges say they do not have time to wait for the CBSE students who walk in after a long gap in the declaration of results of the two streams of school education. This time, the Plus Two results were published on May 9 while the CBSE results are expected on May 25.

This gives a gap of 16 days between both streams, two days more than last year. And, this gap is proving to be costly with every passing year. This is compounded by the fact that it is the discretion of the colleges to keep a percentage of seats for students from CBSE.

There is no compulsion on the colleges’ part to reserve a quota because neither the Government nor the university stipulates it.

Principal of an arts and science college says that although they have a moral obligation to reserve a quota for CBSE students, this becomes next to impossible when there is great pressure from too many eligible candidates from the State Board for seats.

Kumar (name changed), parent of a CBSE student, says that the college where his son has applied for a commerce course will only receive the filled-in application after May 25 along with the mark sheet. He is apprehensive of his son’s admission even with good marks.

“I hear from parents of State Board students that admissions are almost over in most of the colleges. But the college authorities say that there is a quota for CBSE students,” Kumar says.

His concern is not ill founded. He is among many parents who share the same worry.

The only solution is to reduce the gap between the publication of the State Board and CBSE results. But whether this will be done by the State Government or the CBSE is anyone’s guess.

According to Geetha Jayachandran, Principal of Yuvabharathi Public School, the CBSE schools are helpless even though they are aware of the difficulty of the students. “This is a serious problem here because, in other States, the gap between the publication of the two results is not so wide. Also, there is no quota in colleges. Some colleges give provisional admissions based on the XI Grade card with an attestation by the principals. But this is not the usual practice,” she says.

Continuous representations have been made by the principals to the CBSE in vain. In the recent national CBSE conference held in Chennai, a joint representation was again made. The contention of the CBSE is that since the results are common for the country and have always been published in the last week of May, there is not much that can be done about it.