This yr too, Latur gets tangled in its `pattern’

Sadly and strangely, while other divisional boards who have adopted the procedure are reaping rich rewards, the Latur pattern has stopped working for Latur itself.

Before Latur was separated from Aurangabad divisional board some three years ago, it produced toppers and also top pass percentages. However, something seems to have gone wrong since then. If the statistics are compared now, it is way below the overall state-level percentages. For example, this year and the last, the pass percentages of fresh candidates in Latur were 63.21 as against 69.11 and 60.19 as against 68.14 respectively. Same is the case with repeaters or pass percentages of sex-wise distribution.

But, the same technique is doing wonders for other educational institutions thus helping them grab the limelight. This year, Mahim’s D G Ruparel has eighteen merit holders and Sion’s SIES has eight merit holders in the General Merit list. Today, most institutions in the city cater to some sort of specialised classes for their better students framed on the Latur pattern. And the principals do not have any compunctions. Says SIES principal V Padmanabhan: "What is so wrong here? Right in the beginning, we make it clear to all our students. Of course, I do agree with you that we should have one for the academically weak students which we are planning from next year."

Why just colleges, even coaching classes, who follow the pattern, have been getting positive results for long.

Even as one wonders what really went wrong with Latur, a senior official from the Education Department maintains: "Others are only doing it better". But Jadav reportedly has voiced some other reasons including fraudulent measures like managing centre or moderator adopted in cornering ranks as the culprits.