File picture of students at a private JEE coaching in Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar, July 31:The higher education department is planning to provide coaching facilities for national-level competitive exams such as JEE (Mains) and AIPMT to students in government-run junior colleges.

This was decided following the poor show by the state students in the JEE this year.

Authorities in the department said that they are exploring possibilities with reputed organisations if such facilities can be provided. It will be also examined if the college premises could be made available to these coaching centres.

The selection of such centres will be made on the basis of their performance, credibility and reputation

“It is seen that existing government colleges that have already allowed private partners to run courses on their campuses end up with lot of complaints about the partner institute. Therefore, this has to be a very careful decision. It will be very important to take teaching community and the students into confidence before taking a final decision. Feedback from the students, the principals and teachers of the colleges,” said a senior official from the department.

The department will also make sure that the coaching is offered in a subsidised rate as compared to the existing market rate, said the official. This year, of the total 3,202 candidates, who appeared the JEE (Advance), only 343 qualified the test. Of these, only nine among them secured ranks within 1,000.

A total of 46, 098 students from the state, including 8,758 from CBSE, 1,056 from ICSE and 35,562 from CHSE and 722 (other boards) appeared for the JEE (Mains) examination. Of them, only 1,364 from CBSE, 130 from ICSE, 1,688 from CHSE and 20 (from other boards) cracked the test.

“We are trying to find out reasons behind the poor performance of the state students particularly from CHSE board below the national average. We’re working on strategies to better the performance of the students,” the official said.

This apart, it was decided that the syllabus for Class XI and Class XII of CHSE would be made on par with CBSE by 2016. Emphasis will also be laid of teaching and learning of English language at both the high school and Plus Two level.

The school and mass education department has also decided to get CBSE affiliation for its proposed model schools which are to be established in different blocks of various districts. Additionally, it will ask schools to significantly improve the teaching and learning at Class IX, especially in subjects such as science, maths and English so that the transition from high school to Plus Two is smooth.