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Education Plus
Turning the focus on fundamentals
R. KRISHNAMOORTHY & SHASTRY V. MALLADY
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Are students in rural and semi-urban areas taking the Plus-One syllabus seriously? Those who do not, suffer in the first- year engineering course.
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Photo: T. Singaravelou
Strong foundation: Achieving a firm grasp of the subject without rushing through Plus-One portions will help in better performance in engineering study.
With Class XII education increasingly being perceived as a means to secure admission to good colleges, are schools paying enough attention to Class XI, when major concepts and fundamentals of the chosen stream are taught?
The very purpose of the abolition of the Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examination (CET) by the State Government was to provide equal opportunities to students from rural and semi-urban areas. In fact, the Government’s justification for abolition of the entrance examination — that students in cities and large towns enjoyed the advantage of performing well by virtue of undergoing entrance coaching — found many takers.
Has the consideration of students’ performance in the Plus-Two public examination alone for admission into professional courses changed the scenario? Rural and semi-urban students, who normally study in Government or Government-aided Higher Secondary Schools continue to remain in the same disadvantageous position, observe principals of engineering colleges.
Students from a good number of self-financing schools in urban areas still hold the edge when it comes to securing the desired programme in institutions of choice, they say. Ironically, it is due to these institutions continuing with their practice of rushing through Plus-One portions in a matter of few months or even skipping contents in order to take a plunge into coaching for the Plus-Two public examinations right away, the conduct of district-level examination for Plus-One notwithstanding. This practice is widely prevalent in schools in western districts of the State.
On the other hand, Government and Government-aided schools everywhere have to necessarily stick to the prescribed academic pattern.
But whether the students from the erring self-financing schools continue with the same momentum of their performance at school level in the first year of engineering is a different question altogether. Shockingly, there have been umpteen instances of students turning out to be failures in the very first year of engineering, the reason being that the Plus-One syllabus serves as the basis for the subjects of study. The deleterious impact of losing focus on the fundamentals will continue in the subsequent years of their engineering programme, according to a principal of an engineering college, who sees a solution in evolving a mechanism whereby the score in Plus-One is also taken into reckoning for admission into engineering programmes.
To make schools realise the importance of the first year of higher-secondary, at least 25 per cent of the Plus-One score must be taken into consideration for calculating the cut-off for admission to engineering programmes, insists Rajagopal, a retired Physics teacher of R.S.K. Higher Secondary School, Tiruchi.
“Revamp the model”
Senior principal of Mahatma Montessori Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Madurai, S. Premalatha, agrees, saying that she had seen several students who were unable to do well in first year of engineering course because the fundamentals were not picked up well in Plus-One. Going a step further, she suggests the State Government revamp the higher secondary model in Tamil Nadu by making it a two-year comprehensive syllabus and examination system.
“By doing that, the issue of neglecting Plus-One syllabus and focusing too much on Plus-Two would not arise,” Ms. Premalatha adds. She said the Mahtma School has already in place a strategic programme for Plus-One students for their personality development, guest lectures and talent promotion besides concentrating on subjects.
According to Mr. Rajagopal, if this mechanism is introduced, State Board students will be able to fare even better in the All India Engineering Entrance Examinations (AIEEE) and Indian Institute of Technology - Joint Entrance Examination.
Uma Ramesh, principal, T.V.S. Matriculation Higher Secondary School, who says that schools must focus on having ‘value camps’ for Plus-One students and create a base for Plus-Two. “Plus-Two coaching should start only after the Plus-One examinations are over,” she insists.
The trend in the commerce stream, however, seems a little different, where schools largely give sufficient time and focus to Class XI syllabus, too, teachers note.
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