TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Students who wish to opt for pre-vocational subjects by dropping either Mathematics, Science or Social science at the Std X level are unable to do since the number of schools which have adopted pre-vocational subjects is low.
Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education chairman Jose Remedios Rebello has admitted that it was a problem and said that it was necessary that more schools build the infrastructure to offer these subjects.
“It is true that the adoption rate is low. It is partly because many schools do not have the infrastructure to sustain these subjects,” Rebello said.
The Board offers students subjects such as cookery, repairs of domestic appliances, home science, gardening, food processing, which students can choose in lieu of any one of the following subject ~ either Maths or Science or Social Science.
However, none of the schools offer all the subjects and only a handful of schools offer even one of the subjects, thus denying the students who want to drop any one difficult subject the facility that they are entitled to.
“I would like to urge more schools to take up these subjects,” Rebello said.
The schools’ lackadaisical attitude in incorporating these subjects and making them available to the students has been almost criminal, with government schools being no different from the rest.
Rebello however also said that they would be introducing Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) for the IX and X students in the future. He however clarified that it would not be implemented from the next academic year.
“We have to prepare the teachers, principals and schools for this. We require some groundwork to be done before it can be started,” Rebello said.
“With the CCE in force, almost 95% of the students will pass,” Rebello said.
He also said that the Board was contemplating introducing percentile system in the future in order that Goan students can know where exactly they stand at the national level.
