ACTA asks Edu Minister to revoke decision of not accepting HSLC and HS results for govt jobs

July 4: The government of Assam on 1 July has announced the evaluation criteria for the students of Class X and Class XII on Thursday. The results of the High School Leaving Certificate (HSLC) students and High School (HS) students will be calculated using those criteria. But a particular clause in the “Evaluation Criteria” has been now in the eye of a storm.

The Evaluation Criteria of both HS & HSLC stated, “…those students who aspire to become teachers/ employees in the Education Department of Assam or any other Department under Government of Assam where recruitment of teachers/ employees are substantially based on HSLC or HSSLC marks, without there being any scope of written test or interview, shall have to appear in special HSLC/AHM examination to be conducted later after improvement of the situation as stated in para-4 above so that they are at par with previous or future batches of HSLC or HSSLC in assessment of merit.”

Expressing their grievance, Assam College Teachers’ Association (ACTA) stated, “We are apprehensive about the Government decision not to consider the mark-sheet and certificate awarded to the students as equivalent to those of HS & HSLC examinations held normally in all other years in respect of their acceptability for Govt. jobs. This has created confusion and a feeling of depression among the student community. We are, therefore, very concerned about the future of the affected students. ACTA urged upon the state government to revoke the decision not to accept the results of the H.S. and H.S.L.C. examination declared on the basis of the evaluation procedure recommended by the specially constituted committee for government jobs.

ACTA in a memorandum addressed to Education Minister Dr Ranoj Pegu on Sunday said that even the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) cancelled the Class 10 and Class 12 Final Examinations, 2021 and chalked out an evaluation procedure to declare the results. But the central government did not take any decision to the effect that the mark-sheets and certificates of these examinations would not be accepted for any Government jobs. This they said would result in a glaring discrimination as students passing out of central boards would be having the advantage of getting their HSLC and HS certificates and mark-sheets recognized even in state govt. jobs while those from SEBA will not be recognized.

Request the Govt. to revoke the decision not to acceptHSLC and HS results to be declared based on specially devised evaluation procedure for Govt. jobs. This would result in glaring discrimination. Wrote to the Honourable Education Minister.@himantabiswa@ranojpeguassam pic.twitter.com/xF76kAXdci

— Assam College Teachers' Association (@ACTA_ASSAM) July 4, 2021

As the procedure recommended by the committees for H.S. and HSLC examinations would actually be an evaluation of the students’ performance in earlier examinations, part of which involves performance in the internal examinations of the same class (class 10 and 12), as well as other related academic activities, it would be justified to award full credit to a student for his/her result declared by the Board/Council. Otherwise, the whole exercise would turn out to be futile in the long run, stated the teachers’ association.

ACTA further stated that, if the results of these examinations could be accepted for the purpose of admissions in courses of higher studies, it would be incongruous, discriminatory and unjustified not to accept same for government jobs. And, in these depressing times of pandemic, our students need humane consideration from all of us to come out of this difficult time mentally unscathed and to march towards a brighter future. The said government decision would be adverse to the psychological state of the students. Further, making the students sit for another examination later in the year, while they would be pursuing another course of study, would be too burdensome for the them mentally and physically, which would adversely affect their future academic progress.

ACTA also offered a couple of suggestions in this connection. In the first place, ACTA stated that the share of internal examination in the theory part of subjects having practical in H.S. class should be increased from 10 marks to 30 marks, while the share of practical should be reduced from 30 marks to 10 marks. This would be commensurate with the normally existing ratio in respect of theory-practical components. This would also be a relatively more adequate evaluation of the theoretical knowledge of the students, which usually has a larger share of marks compared to practical knowledge. Secondly, while giving credit (mark) for attendance, the year in class 10 and class 12 should not be taken into account, as a significant part of the year 2020 was without much regular classes and many students did not have any facility to attend online classes.

The memorandum addressed by ACTA to the Education Minister Dr Ranoj Pegu on 4 July was signed by its President Biswajit Bhuyan and General Secretary Himangshu Maral.