Panel for new marking formula set up, will submit report in 10 days: CBSE
NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Friday constituted a 13-member team to fix “well-defined objective criteria” for the assessment of Class 12 students following the cancellation of their exams in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a statement, announcing the constitution of the committee, CBSE said the panel will submit its report within 10 days. Officials said the board will now collect data on the past performances from schools and seek expert opinions to formulate the alternative assessment method.
The Union government on Tuesday cancelled CBSE Class 12 exams to ward off the threat of coronavirus infections.
The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The government said that CBSE will come up with a “well-defined objective criteria” in a time-bound manner to assess these students. On Thursday, the Supreme Court gave two weeks to the CBSE to come up with an evaluation formula for Class 12 students.
In the statement, the board said, “In view of the uncertain conditions due to Covid and the feedback obtained from various stakeholders, it was decided that Class 12 board exams of CBSE will not be held this year. It was also decided that CBSE will take steps to compile the results as per well-defined objective criteria in a timeb-ound manner.”
The members of the committee included Vipin Kumar, joint secretary in ministry of education’s department of school education, Udit Prakash, director of the Delhi government’s directorate of education (DOE), Nidhi Pandey, commissioner of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, one representative from the UGC and NCERT each, and two representatives from the schools, CBSE controller examinations and director (academics), among others.
Sanyam Bhardwaj, CBSE controller examinations and a member of the committee, said the board will try to formulate a criterion using which the students will get marks equivalent to what they would have gotten after appearing in the examination.
“We will analyse and study the data of previous year performances of students in classes 10, 11 and internal exams of Class 12 and compare it with their Class 12 final marks in CBSE board exams. We will compare and correlate the performances of students in Class 10 and then Class 12 in previous years. We will collect this data from some schools on Monday,” he said.
Bhardwaj said that the board will also seek information regarding the methods schools used for the internal assessment of students.
“We are just trying to find out the ground reality and take wider consultation before coming out with an assessment method. We have requested our regional officers to consult with schools in their regions and seek this information. Besides, we will also take advice from experts on the matter... Whatever data we will collect from schools would be easily available with them,” he said.
Tania Joshi, principal of The Indian School, said, “The committee has wide range of people. It’s looking very balanced... If the board is going to consult large number of schools it will have some benchmark to base their assessment policy on.”
Teachers and students have already expressed reservations over suggestions in some quarters that the CBSE formula for assessing Class 10 students may be applied for Class 12.