Now, HSC failures will not lose academic year in Maharashtra

Mumbai: In a major progressive policy, the Maharashtra government has decided to permit failures in HSC (Class XII) exams to reappear in July so that they don't lose a valuable academic year, Education Minister Vinod Tawde said here on Monday.

Until now, such students were permitted to take the exams only in October and the results were declared by December, effectively compelling them to take up further studies only after they had lost an academic year.

"The HSC exams are usually held in February-March every year and the re-examinations for the unsuccessful candidates are taken around September-October. However, after they clear the re-exams, they cannot get admission to any college or professional courses mid-way in the academic year," Tawde said.

The new policy will ensure that such students don't forfeit an academic year and if they pass the re-exam, they can continue their further studies without a break, the minister added.

In 2015, a similar policy was implemented for SSC (Class X) failures which has proved to be a boon for the student community, explained an official, adding that Maharashtra was the first state in the country to implement this policy.

The regular SSC exams were conducted in March and the re-exams for the failures were held in July-August and the results were declared within three weeks in which 57,517 students were declared successful.

This ensured that they could continued their junior college or other vocational and professional courses without a gap and facilitated their social inclusion and prevented a blot on their educational record.