Only 266 take admission test

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 25

It seems meritorious schools are losing their charm among students as surprisingly only 266 students appeared in the entrance exam for the meritorious school in Jalandhar against 500 seats. This has come as a surprise to the officials who were expecting a good count of the students.

The admission test for nine meritorious schools in Punjab was held today. Out of 500 seats in Jalandhar, 300 are for non-medical, 100 for medical and non-medical each.

Out of the 266 students, total number of girls who appeared in the exam was 210 and 56 boys appeared in the exam.

Officials said the turnout of the students was quite less as last year more than 400 students had applied in Jalandhar.

An official from the Education Department said may be the students had not applied because of the introduction of Rs 200 as registration fees.

Notably, last year too it had become difficult for the department to fill the seats after the entrance test which forced the department to take the exam again.

The result of the Class X examination, declared by the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB), last year had come under scanner, with only 50.3% students out of the total students, who appeared in the meritorious entrance test, passing the test.

As many as 6,016 students, who had scored more than 80% marks in Class X from all over the state, had appeared in the entrance test, out of which 2,988 students could not clear the test.

A fresh test for entrance in meritorious schools had also failed to fill the vacant seats, with only 57.3 % candidates passing the exams.

A teacher from the meritorious school in Jalandhar said the district education officer had informed the schools about the test, but the number remained less.

“Now it will be decided by the higher authorities on how the seats will be filled,” he said.

Project director for meritorious schools KAS Bhullar said Jalandhar caters to Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, SBS Nagar, Kapurthala and other districts depending on merit in counselling.

The students who have appeared in other districts too can get admission in Jalandhar’s meritorious school.