SC extends Best 5 option to ICSE students

The High Court had stayed the admission process,which had started on June 25,saying the rule failed to offer a level-playing field for students from Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) boards when compared to those from the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) syllabus.

Now,ICSE board students,seeking admission in Class XI can either opt for the “Best 5” rule or go for the traditional method of calculating the aggregate of all seven subjects.

As per the Best 5 rule,the marks from five out of six subjects would be considered to grade the student in his or her class X mark sheet.

The subject in which the student fared the worst would be left out.

“The Best 5 rule shall be made applicable even in the case of the ICSE exams. That will be made applicable only to Group 1 and Group 2 subjects,” the court ordered.

But though the court added that “students concerned feel that they should also get benefit of Group 3”,it said that as of now they have an “option to proceed on the average of all seven marks”.

The apex court’s interim order would now pave the way for the Maharashtra government and the state’s Secondary and Higher Education Board to go ahead with the admission process for the 5,000-odd junior colleges in the state.

An estimated 16 lakh SSC and 10,000 ICSE students are vying for admission in various junior colleges of the state.

The court granted the students and parents eight weeks to file their response and posted the matter for further hearing to October,2010.

The rule and ruling

The Class X exam under the state board has six subjects; under the BEST 5 rule,only the five best subject-wise scores would be totalled. The government’s ground was that ICSE and CBSE exams allow students to score higher,leaving the state boards at a disadvantage. ICSE students approached the High Court,which struck down the policy as discriminatory,after which the state government appealed in the Supreme Court.