Education board seeks clarification on medical admissions

In a letter to the state health department, the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB) has sought clarification on the admission procedure for medical courses.

The GSHSEB has asked the department if the state will conduct admissions on the basis of Gujarat Common Entrance Test (GujCET) or follow the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).

GSHSEB officials said that the board which conducts the examination has still not made any arrangement for conducting GujCET. "There is no clarification over admission rules, or on whether to conduct GujCET or follow NEET. Hence we have sought clarification from the health department which is supposed to frame the rules," said an official.

However, in the absence of rules, about 35,000 to 40,000 students do not know whether they will have to appear in GujCET as well. Officials said usually the examination is conducted in the third week of April and the application forms are filled along with those of the board examination. However, now with the examination coming close, students will be forced to rush to schools to fill up forms.

In 2013, the state had decided to hold GujCET for admissions to medical and dental courses across the state, if there was any delay in holding NEET for medical admission across India. Later, the matter was decided by the apex court and NEET was scrapped and the state went ahead with the admissions through GujCET.

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Board exam fever grips Gujarat

Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB) will conduct SSC and HSC exams from March 13. Nearly 17 lakh students will take their board exams-the main papers of which will conclude on March 26.


Like last year, the board has granted holidays between major papers for students to prepare better. Students of SSC will get a holiday before science and maths exams while HSC students will also get time before key papers.

Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) class 10 and class 12 exams will begin on March 1, 2014. Where class X exams begin with 'easier' exams like Marathi, Spanish, painting etc, class XII's begin with the English examination. The exams for class X will end by March 19, and class XII will finish on April 17.

Board officials said 9.75 lakh students will take the SSC exam. The exams will be held at 780 exam centres-22 of which are new ones this year.

For the HSC general stream, 5.08 lakh students will take the exams. Seating arrangements have been made at 367 exam centres.

In HSC (science), 1.17 lakh students will appear for the fourth and final semester of HSC while 1.21 lakh students will appear for the second semester science exams. These arrangements have been made in 110 centers.

Board chairman R R Varsani said that three video conferences have been conducted for smooth arrangements of exams. Special directives have been sent to DEOs that arrangements should be made to avoid copying, which includes preventing parents from forming groups and standing outside exam centres.

"Since half of the exam paper is based on multiple choice questions, the focus is to prevent mass copying. Centres have been prevailed upon to install CCTV cameras and videography will be done in sensitive centres. Footage from CCTVs will be sent to the board where officials will personally examine them and try to curb copying," said Varsani.

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Measly pay proved costly for kids

The deeply flawed Gujarat board textbooks for primary sections were first introduced as an experiment in 2011-12 in 566 schools in Panchmahals, Surat, Sabarkantha, Amreli and two wards in Ahmedabad. They were made the prescribed texts for all Gujarat board schools this year. It has been almost two years since the first textbook review was conducted but the teachers who authored the books are yet to be paid their paltry fees.

In fact, qualified teachers stay away from such academic exercises because of the government's apathy and measly compensation. The primary education department today boasts of a budget of Rs 3,500 crore, but it pays textbook writers only Rs 500 per visit to designated centres, which takes care of the travel allowance and brief stay.

"The amount does not exceed Rs 100 per page for each of the textbook writers," says a senior primary education department official. "Overall, the average payment does not exceed Rs 5,000. There may be exceptional cases where the amount is higher because of greater number of pages."

The Gujarat Council for Educational Research and Training (GCERT) director, R U Purohit, says in an official press release that the state government had conducted a written examination for 6,000 primary teachers before selecting key teams. Purohit says that nearly 350 experts consisting of 11 university lecturers, 22 GCERT lecturers, two education officers, 14 experts of the textbook board and 293 senior primary school teachers had reviewed the suggested curriculum and the content of the textbooks.

While referring to the error terror in textbooks, Purohit says, "There are no errors in Gujarati textbooks." However, Purohit did not the comment on the quality of the content of these textbooks. He admits that the errors cropped up in translated textbooks.

Purohit says, "The two high-powered committees will review the process of textbook writing and will also look into issues of gender and inclusion."

From TOI News

Schools play safe, junk Gujarat board textbooks

Due to the poor quality of government textbooks for primary classes, many schools in the city are switching to books published by other publishers for supplementary reading. Schools using these texts say the books are rich in content, contain good suggestions for activities and lay emphasis on improving language skills and a critical understanding of subjects.

For instance, one Gujarat board school in the city has endorsed a class 3 Orient BlackSwan English textbook for its class 6 students. "This is of a much higher level and better than the state textbooks which are full of dull activities," said the teacher of a public school in the city. This book is also being used by two leadings schools in Vadodara and Surat.

The other textbooks being used by schools are those published by Oxford University Press for different subjects. To teach grammar, some schools have prescribed books for primary classes published by Allied Publications and S Chand and Company. "There is no special emphasis on grammar in workbooks for English published by Gujarat board. These are good alternatives," said the teacher of an Ahmedabad school.

For mathematics in class 6 and 7, schoolteachers prescribe NCERT textbooks or those published by Periwinkle Publications. In the case of subjects like computers, schools prefer books of Goel Publications. Navneet Publication books are recommended for crafts and workbooks of various subjects. Some schools have special books for general knowledge, creative writing and drawing published by Jeevandeep Prakashan.

"We found that board textbooks for social science do not give a deep insight into the culture, religions and traditions of our country or even the state. There are a number of activities in the books but none offer a practical understanding of the human impact on, say, the environment. Students should be introduced to challenges that our society faces but this is missing in the latest board textbooks for classes 6 to 8. In the class 7 English textbook, one of its authors has included her own poem. This is the level of board textbooks," said a retired teacher, PL Suthar.

However, Rajendrasinh Jadeja, director of HM Patel institute of English training and research, which was roped in by the Gujarat board for the preparation of the English textbooks, claims, "The texts were designed to encourage creativity, critical thinking, and also introduce them to different kinds of English usage. The traditional mode of education has been replaced with instruction in more practical aspects of language usage. Teachers now have to adjust to the new system," said Jadeja.

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