Kanchan Singh Administrative Secretary, AIWC

lThere is no doubt about the fact that admission procedures in schools should be made more transparent. The recent incidents, which have hit the headlines, have been an eye-opener. We should go all out in combating this menace and I think the best way to keep a tab on such anomalies is to decentralise the admission procedure. Power concentrated in the hands of one individual will certainly lead to corrupt transactions.

In fact, every school should have a committee with a number of people being involved in it, which would, in turn, bring about transparency in the process. If a single individual is in charge of the entire process, there are no checks and balances on his authority.

Amitava Ghosh Vice-president, Celluloid Chapter

lIt?s absolutely necessary for the educational institutions to make the admission procedures more transparent so that no one has a chance to raise any questions. Each year, hundreds of parents seek admissions for their children in some of the best schools available. Often some children fail to clear the bar and their parents have every right to know why and where did their children falter. The school authorities should, at least, put up the marks scored by the aspirants in the admission tests so that the parents have a fair idea of the performance of their wards.

It is also not a bad idea for the school authorities to conduct a common admission test for the children, one for the ICSE-affiliated and another for the CBSE-affiliated schools.

Sharda Vinayak Senior government official

lIt is a fact that the reputed English-medium schools in the steel city are not transparent enough when it comes to admissions, either in the junior or the senior section. In fact, such a system is the bane of the modern education system.

To make the procedure transparent enough, the school authorities should publicly announce the criteria for admissions and the admission lists should display details of them.

The list should also put up an elaborate break-up of the marks obtained by a child in his written test and the viva-voc?.

This arrangement will go a long way in ensuring the transparency of the system, where no one would dare question the integrity of the officials involved in it.

Rajesh Ghosal Engineer

lThe root of the problem lies in the fact that there is a lot of competition among parents to get their children admitted to good schools. The schools are also eager to cash in on this fetish and they have begun to take advantage of the situation by means, which might not always be fair. What has made it easier for them is that the fee structure is not regulated by any government body.

Similar is the case for the admission procedure in schools. If these processes are monitored by legitimate authorities and are made transparent, we, as parents, are saved of a lot of hassles. Normally, we have to wait endlessly for the names of our wards to appear and bug the school authorities for it. If the system is made more transparent, there is more certainty for the parents as they can try and look for other options if their wards fail to get admitted in a particular school.

Ujwal Tiwary Management student

lMy personal experiences with the system have been quite bitter. My father is no more and so the onus of educating two younger brothers is on me. Since the popular perception believes that there is no transparency in the system, and I think quite rightly so, I have had to run around and try two to three schools to get my brothers admitted. My uncles had warned me that the admission procedure is very unpredictable and I should keep more options at hand in order to stop my brothers from losing a year. He also told me that the instances were galore where a school turned down meritorious students at the eleventh hour for reasons only they know.

If only the system was more transparent, I would have had to face a lot less trouble in admitting my brothers.

Moreover, I think the concerned authorities should do something about the mushrooming private schools, many of whom are not even affiliated. They are traps to destroy the future of students.

Subrata Mazumdar Schoolteacher

lThe schools should be kept under a vigilant body to ensure that they do not indulge in unlawful activities. There are many schools where teachers are not paid according to the authorised guidelines, while the schools go out of the way to grab affiliation from the concerned boards. While on paper they keep themselves clean, the reality is far from the truth.

Similar misappropriations also occur in admission procedures when schools give in to political pressures and admit students, who have a sound political backing. As a result, the future prospects of meritorious students take a beating. If the standard of education in the state has to be enhanced, transparency in the system is an imperative.

N.M. Mankad Principal Cambrian Public School

lThe admission procedure must be transparent as schools should only admit students who are deserving.

In our school the admission procedure is very strict and the management decides about the nitty-gritty of the admission procedure before it gets going. A cut-off mark is decided and students are admitted strictly on the basis of that. I must also add that backdoor entrance is not at all entertained.