Educationists have slammed state education department’s efforts to make Class XI exams tougher for students to prepare them for national-level competitive entrance exams like JEE and NEET.  The opposition comes in the wake of the state board’s recent decision to change the paper pattern for Class XI to make the exams tougher. 

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DNA had earlier reported about the state’s decision to conduct the Maharashtra State Common Entrance Test (MHT-CET) for engineering and medical courses on a par with the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) starting 2018. Following this, the state board started a preparation portal for competitive exams. And finally, the board changed the paper pattern for Class XI. Some changes included making it compulsory for students to solve all questions without being given options, not following syllabus weightage, and so on. 

Anil Deshmukh, general secretary of the Maharashtra Junior College Teachers Federation, said the move is causing more harm than good. “The new paper pattern has no logic. It does not follow basic things like sticking to chapter weightage. So a large number of students are failing in Class XI. If this continues, students would appear privately and stop coming to colleges,” he said. 

Subhash Joshi of Science Parivar, a coaching institute, said, “The government has to understand not all students sit for entrance exams. Also, any such revision requires a revision in syllabus too.”