Team Herald
PANJIM: The Goa Headmasters Association (GHA) has expressed discontent towards Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education’s (GBSHSE) executive council decision to allow students failing in class IX and XI to keep terms (ATKT) and seek admission to the next class.
GHA said the move would promote mediocrity and discourage excellence among students. The GHA members are likely to call on Goa Board chairman Ramakrishna Samant with a memorandum opposing the move of ATKT.
Sources in Goa Board said that the decision of the executive council is not final and the same would be placed before the full-fledged Board meeting before implementing it. “Board welcomes all the suggestions and we will consider it,” sources said.
GHA president Mariano Valadares said that the move is making it too easy for the students to clear the exams and class.
“The students will get very comfortable. How can a teacher teach a class that is not interested? If they cannot study in the IX standard, can they cope up with the studies of X standard?” he questioned.
Currently, students who failed in only one or two subjects at the Standard IX level were allowed to move on to Standard X provided they answered a supplementary exam in June and cleared it.
The ATKT would be introduced on pilot basis for two years beginning from the current academic year 2019-20 for the students of class IX and class XI. The executive council, however, also resolved that unless students clear the class IX and XI, their board examination results of SSC and HSSC would not be declared.
The number of students failing classes IX and XIth is around 10,000 to 11,000 on an average and we have seen large number of drop outs as a result of it.
This year, around 18,684 students had answered the SSC examination, while the HSSC students were 16,952.
