Plus Two results on Friday

VILLUPURAM:The results of Plus Two examinations held in March will be announced on Friday.

About 5,87, 245 students took the test in Tamilnadu and Puducherry.
An Education Department statement said 2,78,673 boys and 3,08,572 girls appeared for the examinations.The number was up by 30,000 from last year as students from 810 schools took part in the series ot tests.Over 50,000 teachers have been involved in evaluating the candidates. The results will be announced by Vasanthi Jeevanantham, director of Government Examinations in Chennai. Simultaneously, the results would be published at schools and the mark lists have been sent to them.

More time

It may be noted that this year students were given additional 10 minutes to go through the question papers. The extra time has helped them read and understand the questions properly before answering. This is expected to help them score more marks and improve the pass percentage in the public examinations.With the government scrapping Common Entrance Test (CET) for professional courses, only the marks scored at the Board examinations are considered for admission to professional courses. Hence, the Education Department had worked hard to see that the results were announced early. This would provide more time for students to select the course and college.

New colleges

Meanwhile, State Higher Education Minister K Ponmudy on Tuesday announced that the government would start five new government engineering colleges at Villupuram, Panruti, Tindivanam, Nagapattinam and Ramanathapuram.

The government had also decided to accept the demand of self-financing engineering colleges to relax the entry requirement for admission, he said.

Noting that last year alone, 10,000 engineering seats were left vacant, Ponmudy said the qualifying mark for admission to engineering colleges in the State would be reduced by five percentage points, from 60 per cent to 55 per cent in the general category, 55 to 50 per cent for OBCs, 50 to 45 per cent for MBCs and a simple pass mark for SCs and STs.

This would make it easier for rural students to gain access to technical education, he added.