Kochi: The Kerala High Court dismissed plea challenging the state government’s decision to scrap awarding grace marks for SSLC students who win certificates/awards for participating in Scouts and Guides, Student Police Cadets and National Cadet Corps, for this academic year.
The court, meanwhile, accepted the government’s stand that students who had won such achievements would get bonus points during admission to higher secondary courses. The High Court noted that the pass percentage and the marks scored by students are already high. Awarding additional grace marks would adversely affect the scope of higher education for students who only have academic performance to their credit. The division bench of Chief Justice Mani Kumar and Justice Shaji P Chaly has passed the order on a plea that was filed by the Kerala Students Organization and Faseeh Rahman, a class ten student in Mukkam Kozhikode.
The government had announced that the higher education of such students wouldn’t be affected as they would be granted bonus point. The court also noted that it couldn’t find any fault in the government decision to scrap granting grace marks for the academic year 2020 – 21.
Even without awarding grace marks, the pass percentage was 99.47% and 1,21,318 students had scored A plus in all subjects. Not just regular classes, sports and cultural festivals, work experience and IT festivals too weren’t conducted due to the Covid 19 outbreak. Government explained that grace marks were cancelled owing to this situation.