Guwahati, June 27: Assam education minister Ranoj Pegu on Monday advised the students who had cleared this year’s HSLC exam to muster confidence and courage to opt for either Science or Commerce streams as the employability scope in these streams “is relatively higher” (than the Arts stream).
The advice by the education minister was in the context of the lower number of students in Commerce and Science streams (in the HS exam 2022) even as most of them had passed in the first and second divisions in the higher secondary (HS) exam, the results of which were declared on Monday.
As against 1,56,107 students who appeared in Arts stream, 33,534 students appeared in the Science stream while only 15,199 students had appeared in the Commerce stream of the higher secondary exam.
The education minister also said that efforts were on to fill up the posts of post-graduate teachers in the institutions imparting these two streams.
He further said that good teaching practices have to be encouraged and that teachers would be groomed through training programmes such as ToT (training of teachers) at IIT-Guwahati besides also engaging faculty of engineering and other colleges.
Pegu further clarified that not all students placed in the first division in the higher secondary exam would be given scooties and that there would be a cut-off percentage to determine the eligible candidates.
“A cut-off mark will be there on the basis of which the eligible candidates will be shortlisted and given scooties,” the minister said.
He said the government would decide a cut-off mark in accordance with its budget allocation to the purchase of scooters to be given to the eligible students.
“Moreover, we will explore ways in regard to the eligibility criteria of the HSLC candidates for the ‘Anundoram Borooah Award’ (laptops/Internet connections),” the minister added.