Madras High Court seeks response from education department on discriminatory system

Madurai: The Madurai bench of the Madras High court directed the State School Education department secretary on Thursday, to file a response to a petition seeking to do away with a 'discriminatory system' of fixing minimum pass percentage marks for students studying in various streams in the State Board class XI examination.

The Tamil Nadu Government had passed an order in May 2017 to conduct government examinations for class XI students, and fixed 600 marks for class XI and 600 marks for class XII, giving equal weightage to both. But what irked petitioner K R Ramaligam, an educational counsellor from Madurai, is the recent G.O. which introduced a new system of awarding marks.

When the case came up for hearing before the division bench comprising Justices M Venugopal and Abdul Quddhose, the petitioner's counsel told the court that government had adopted a discriminatory system in awarding minimum passing percentage marks and attendance marks for practical, non- practical and vocational students.

Elaborating this, he said that in practical subjects, if students get 21.47 per cent in the written examination he/she can pass in the subject. Whereas non-practical students have to get 27.77 per cent in the written examination to pass in the concerned subjects, he said, adding, the latter have to get more marks than practical students in the written examination to get minimum pass marks.

“Because of the 6.30 percentage point variations, non-practical students are stressed and depressed while preparing for the examination,” said the counsel. He also claimed discrimination in awarding attendance marks to vocational students and non-practical students, and granting higher marks for internals to vocational students and awarding lesser marks for internals to non-practical students.

After recording the submissions, the court posted the next hearing of the case to November 7.