The mushrooming of self-financed schools and poor Class X results could see more than 1,500 Class XI seats (in the science stream) going vacant in schools across Ahmedabad and Rajkot. Thats not all. Academicians fear that the cut-off percentage for admissions could go further down because of the poor results,thus affecting the quality of students seeking admission to the Science stream. According to state government officials,the number of vacant seats will cross previous years mark of 1,500 for Science stream. Last year,nearly 1,500 seats were not filled by schools. This year,with a decline in Class X results,the number of vacant seats will be much more, District Education Officer (DEO) R I Patel told The Indian Express. The centralised admission conducted for nearly 180 government,grant-in-aid and private schools across Ahmedabad district will cover some 16,000 seats. The distribution of admission forms already started on Wednesday. Similar views were expressed by Hitendra Trivedi,principal of Sheth CN Vidyalaya. Certainly Class X result will affect Class XI Science admissions. Not only there would be more vacant seats but also the cut-off percentage will go down,this year. This is also a result of mushrooming of self-financed schools in the city in recent years, Trivedi said. The new academic session will start on July 5. Under the rules for centralised admission,the intake of students is limited to 66 in one section of Class XI Science stream. Out of these 66,40 seats are reserved for students from the same school,10 for students moving from other schools and 16 seats for reserved category students. Reserved seats will be filled by the DEO office only. While,for minority schools,this 66 intake is divided as 46 students from their own school and 20 from other schools. Meanwhile,in Rajkot,a number of schools are finding it difficult to enrol enough number of students against their sanctioned strength in higher secondary classes. The district had recorded a low pass percentage of 58.31 in the SSC examination. While we have got 40 students for our Class XI (science),we are facing trouble in finding students for commerce. Many students with low percentile sought admission in science but we are persuading them to opt for the general stream. We even have to compromise with quality to fill up the Class XI science, said a teacher of a leading grant-in-aid school of the city. However,in Vadodara,the slight drop in Class X results is not expected to affect admissions to Class XI. This is not likely to be the case for any of the three streams - science,commerce,or arts, District Education Officer PM Patel said,adding,Lower results will in fact ensure that students get admission in stream of their choice with less competition at cut-off level. The pass percentage for SSC examination in 2013 in Vadodara was at 66.72%,slightly lower than 66.86% in 2012,but still higher than the state average of 65.12%. With inputs from Gopal Kateshiya and Kumar Anand
