Punjab: To fill vacant seats, qualifying marks in entrance exam lowered from 50 % to 45%

After lowering the cut-off marks for sitting in the entrance exam for senior secondary classes at the 10 meritorious schools of the state from 80 per cent to 50 per cent (for reserved category) and 55 per cent (for general category) this year, Punjab School Education Board has now lowered the qualifying marks in the entrance tests too, from 50 per cent to 45 per cent for the upcoming second counselling. This, in order to fill the vacant 792 seats.

The second counselling has already been postponed twice from July 14 to July 19 and now the new dates are July 23 and 24, due poor response from students. Punjab Education Minister O P Soni, however, said that he was not aware about the development.

Meanwhile, a written direction in this regard has been issued by Assistant Project Director, Meritorious Society, to all the District Education Officers (DEOs) and District Manager (DM), Management Information System (MIS). The DMs have been asked to intimate the students and send a list to the DEOs and principals of the meritorious schools, who will conduct the second counselling.

Out of 792 vacant seats, 449 for boys (26 per cent) and 343 for girls (12 per cent) are lying vacant. Maximum seats are lying vacant in Gurdaspur district where 246 seats out of total 500 are lying vacant. As many as 191 seats are lying vacant here in science stream, 144 in non-medical and 47 in medical, while 55 seats have been lying vacant in commerce here. In Amritsar, 183 seats have been lying vacant in meritorious schools, 152 in science stream (102 in non-medical and 50 in medical) and 31 in commerce. In Sangrur, 123 seats have been lying vacant, 104 in science stream and 19 in commerce. Ferozepur has 101 vacant seats, including 88 in science stream and 13 in commerce. Mohali has 48 vacant seats, while in Talwara, which is only for humanities and commerce, 44 seats are lying vacant. Patiala, Jalandhar, Bathinda and Ludhiana schools have 22,12, 8 and 5 seats vacant respectively.

There were a total of 4,600 seats in all 10 meritorious schools of state, 3,600 in science (900 in medical and 2,700 in non-medical), 950 in commerce and 50 in humanities streams. Out of 4,600 seats, 2,875 seats are reserved for girls, including 2,211 in science stream and 1,725 for boys, including 1389 in science stream.

Government only wants to fill the seats not focusing on the quality of the students, said an English teacher.
News Source (Indian Express)