Education Minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil announced the proposal in the assembly on Monday and said the feedback from all political parties was positive. If it works this year, it will be implemented next year too, he said.

The move follows the controversy over last year’s “percentile” system, which has run into legal trouble. Under a formula introduced by then education minister Vasant Purke, students were selected according to “percentile” instead of percentage.

But ICSE and CBSE schools alleged loopholes in the method for calculating the percentile for each board. Further, when the announcement that the system would be followed came, admission had already begun.

The parents of an ICSE student moved the Bombay High Court. In September, the High Court quashed the government resolution on the percentile system and asked the state government to arrive at a consensus solution.

The government continued to look for other formulas with the same objective. The argument was that SSC (state board) students needed a better break. There are huge variations between boards in terms of scores; the government feels that ICSE and CBSE have a more high-scoring system and their students are at an advantage over their SSC counterparts.

One formula considered was that the five highest-scoring subjects of each SSC student would be considered for calculating the percentile. However, this was eventually rejected.

Having embarked on the reservation idea, the government has sought to pre-empt trouble. Patil assured that unlike last year, the announcement would be made well before the admission season. “We still have to look at all the legalities and then arrive at a decision. We are still in discussion,” said Patil.

The proposal itself has rattled ICSE and CBSE schools. Ayush Dhanuka, who passed ICSE this year with 88 per cent, said, “Reserving 90 per cent of seats for SSC students is unfair. Admission should go on like it has been happening every year. Everybody should have equal opportunity.”

In The field
2 lakh
students passed SSC last year

25,000
students passed ICSE and CBSE from Mumbai this year

1 lakh
hits during admission website trail run (above), big rush likely