44 important academic considerations, and is vastly superior to the alternative patterns that now prevail and that its universal adoption in all parts of the country will bring in several advantages among which the following may be mentioned (1) The school stage will be strengthened and its (2) standards will improve because of its lengthening to twelve years and because of the inclusion, within it, of the intermediate stage which will bring in better teachers and better facilities. The two-year higher secondary stage will have several advantages. It will enable us to control expansion to some extent because an element of selective admission can be introduced at this point. The students will also be mature enough, when they enter Class XI to make a tentative decision about their future career and to embark upon some programmes of prespecializations. It will enable the schools to prepare their gifted students intensively for the University and also to provide remedial action for any shortcomings arising from weaknesses in earlier education, Above all, it will be possible to vocationalise this stage intensively so that a fair proportion of students (ultimately as large as 50 per cent) can be diverted into different walks of life, thus reducing the pressures on university admissions, An important and necessary innovation at this stage would be to provide for transfer of credits to a student who may desire to change from one stream to another.
- (3) The standards in higher education will also improve
as the students going into the university stream will now be better prepared and more mature.
