PanelwantsCBSEto shorten exam season

BOARDS Trimming sevenweek span to a month to help process, check leaks NEW DELHI:

Reducing the board exam season from the current seven weeks to around a month could be one way to improve the process and also prevent leaks of papers, a committee formed by the Human Resource Development ministry after the recent CBSE papers leak incident is likely to recommend, Hindustan Times has learnt.

Doing so would involve considerable logistical juggling, though, because CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) offers 168 courses in Class 12 and 70 in Class 10, and multiple permutations and combinations are possible. Given that there are no restrictions on what students can opt for, conducting these exams usually takes about seven weeks, a member of the committee said.

The way out, added this person who spoke on condition of anonymity, may be to pick courses that have been opted for Hold exams for subjects opted by very few students in the school of the examinee before the main board examinations by very few students and have the schools where these students study be the base for the board exams in such courses that can actually be held before the other board exams begin.

For instance, in 2018, only three students opted for a course in music production, one for a course in maternal and child health, and one for a course on fundamentals of nursing.

“For such courses and other similar courses we can set the school itself as the centre (currently external centres are selected). This will ensure that these exams are held earlier and those that have more number of students we can hold it in March and complete them within a month’s time,” this person said.

This could reduce the exam period from seven weeks to four or five weeks. The committee has also suggested following a double encrypted system for exam papers which is foolproof.

“Under the system the exam paper will be doubly encrypted and will be printed at the centre itself. Logistics of electricity, printers and manpower will be taken care of. This will reduce the chances of any paper leak substantially,” added the member.

Another suggestion made by the committee is that the question papers should have watermarks depending on the exam centres. That way, if there is a leak, it becomes easy to identify the centre from which the leak has happened.

Meanwhile, the committee has also had a subsidiary discussion on whether CBSE should offer a basket of subjects (students choose baskets, not individual subjects).

ICSE and IB, two other boards offer around 30 to 35 subjects in board exams.