All-too-perfect scores beg for reforms in assessment
Neha Pushkarna analysed CBSE results to find that as the number of students appearing for Class 12 Board exams across the nation went up by 64% between 2009 and 2014, the number of those scoring 95% or more jumped by 780%. Marks above 95% are not moderated by the CBSE.
It is not that the schoolchildren got smarter over the years. A data-based digital interactive released by HT on Saturday shows that a student scoring 88% in Class 12 boards in 2015 would have scored 78% a decade earlier.
We can’t blame the practice of moderation alone for inflated scores. In 2004-05, as a de-stressing measure, CBSE had shifted its policy from testing what a student does not know to what she actually knows. Long-answer-type questions were reduced in favour of objective-type questions. Each answer had to have certain points and keywords that were given out to teachers marking the papers. A student who got all of them right would score full marks, even for long essay-type questions, Pushkarna reported.
One could imagine 100% marks in Maths, Physics and Accounting. But now even English and history can get you a perfect score.
Some would argue that identifying keys to each answer is a good way of evaluation because it minimises the scope for subjectivity and brings uniformity in marking. CBSE has over 18,000 schools affiliated to it across India and more on than a million students appear for Class 12 boards every year. But, conducting exams results of which decide the future of so many students has to be more than an administrative or logistical exercise.
Such inflated marks create a false sense of academic excellence among students. It also fuels an unsustainable rat race. Often, DU is accused of being competitive and turning away students when it is merely reacting to the prevalent marks-market dynamics.
Till the early 2000s, as the HT interactive shows, 80% in the best of four could get you a seat in a top on-campus college. With the same marks now, a student would be lucky to get one anywhere at all.
Ending the practice of moderation could be a good start in making the CBSE marking pattern more realistic. But true reform will not be possible unless the assessment system itself is overhauled. The Board results will still throw up exceptional results. But at least it will be less crowded at the top.