CHENNAI : Plus Two students following the new State Board syllabus are all set to take up public examination this March.

With the new, arguably difficult curriculum on one hand and the pressure of having to score high to get into good engineering colleges on the other, this year's board examinations assume additional significance.

"Initially, they practised more problems for the sake of TNPCEE. Now that it has been scrapped for students of the State Board, I find more and more students resorting to theory questions. The `memorise and reproduce' attitude has crept in. This might not help them in the long run," says N. Vijayan, correspondent and principal, Zion Matriculation Higher Secondary School.

Mr. Vijayan, a member of the syllabus framing committee, says the 11th and 12th CBSE portions would help these students fair better in AIEEE.

"In our school, most students are first generation learners. We have been giving extra coaching to make them more comfortable with the new syllabus which is quite difficult. Students were quite confused due to the frequent changes announced the question paper pattern," says R.Ardhanari, headmaster, S.S.V Higher Secondary School.

Till last year, for a student who secured full marks in the practical examination (50), it was sufficient to score 20 out of the 150 marks for theory.

This year, the pass mark for theory paper has been increased to 43.

Members of the Tamil Nadu Higher Secondary School Headmasters' Association have appealed to the Directorate of Education, requesting them to retain the old norm for the first batch. .

Students would benefit only if they give adequate importance to numerical problems as well as theory, says Mr. Vijayan, adding "a student who learns the concepts in the new syllabus well is certainly better equipped than a Class Twelve pass out last year."

"Irrespective of the question paper pattern, we train students strongly in the fundamentals. We emphasise on concept and application so that they can take up any paper with ease," says Madhumati N, director, Aspire Learning, an institute that trains over 1000 State Board students all over the State.

Neither simple

nor difficult

Certain topics have been declared as `boxed' topics from which students would not be tested in the board examinations.

"This has made the exam neither simple nor difficult. The objective of changing the syllabus has not been realised," she says. In the city, there are several coaching centres . In the suburbs and rural areas, they have great difficulty as the training in schools seems insufficient," says M. Parthasarathy of Roof Read Educational Academy.

M.Chandrodayan, a Class Twelve Science student of Santhome Higher secondary School appears confident though he feels the portions are considerably voluminous and tough. "This syllabus will help us compete with our CBSE counterparts in college," he says.

However, R. Srinath, a Class Twelve Commerce student of Chellammal Vidyalaya says, "Accountancy is quite challenging. Three chapters have been introduced from the CBSE syllabus."

"It is the scrapping of CET that has denied them of competition, which would have brought out the best in them," says R. Venkatasubramanian, parent of a Class Twelve student.

More than the syllabus, it is the frequent change in question paper pattern that seems to have confused the students.

"Had we known the pattern earlier, we could have prepared better," says V.Sunitha, a student. Three blue prints were given for certain subjects, she said.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu