We have repeatedly criticised our education system to be outdated, bureaucratic, and unresposive. It has been effective in churning out graduates by the million who are poor in so many vital skills that they are unemployable anyway. Further, various debates rage about the size of the school bags and overemphasis on learning by rote.
This academic year had two things of note in Maharashtra - Online admissions to the first year of junior college (after a miserable failure last year) and an ugly spat between SSCE board on one side and the ICSE and CBSE boards on the other hand. The latter left a bitter taste and delayed college opening by two months and we shall not talk about this.
The other is online admissons pushed through by Govt. of Maharashtra with laudable objectives. I believe that this has been successful, even though we have not yet completed the whole admission process. Infact, I may not be far away from the mark, if I were to call it an unqualified success. Let us not grudge credit where it is due.
A lot of thought and planning has gone in setting this system up. Compared to the disaster we had last year, it is smooth sailing this time. This time around, the Board authorities began early. A detailed booklet was prepared and given to every student sometime in mid-April. Each student was given a unique ID for use when the online process would begin.
There were dry runs with all schools participating. Students with their parents had to undergo a couple of sessions of familiarisation. I was surprised at how thorough the authorities were with their preparations. They were not ready for failure a second time around.
The result was a smooth glitch free process that will come to an end by end August. A rare instance of some excellent work done by the state government authorities. They need to be applauded for this. Just shows that with the right intent, even, an often ridiculed, government dept. can conceptualise something that genuinely adds value to us common citizens. This has almost eliminated the tensions and pressures of running around to various colleges. A great example of effective application of IT skills.
Three Cheers for that.
There were dry runs with all schools participating. Students with their parents had to undergo a couple of sessions of familiarisation. I was surprised at how thorough the authorities were with their preparations. They were not ready for failure a second time around.
The result was a smooth glitch free process that will come to an end by end August. A rare instance of some excellent work done by the state government authorities. They need to be applauded for this. Just shows that with the right intent, even, an often ridiculed, government dept. can conceptualise something that genuinely adds value to us common citizens. This has almost eliminated the tensions and pressures of running around to various colleges. A great example of effective application of IT skills.
Three Cheers for that.
