Evaluate Class 12 students based on past tests: Sisodia
NEW DELHI: Delhi education minister Manish Sisodia on Friday wrote to the Union minister of education Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, making several suggestions for evaluating Class 12 CBSE students following the cancellation of their exams in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In his letter, Sisodia suggested that the students should be evaluated on the basis of their performances in Class 12 pre-boards and practical exams, Class 11 final exams, and Class 10 board exams. The Delhi education minister said the Centre should fix the range of moderation at “plus or minus five marks” for Class 12 students.
On June 1, the Centre cancelled the CBSE Class 12 exams to ward off the threat of coronavirus infections. The government said that CBSE will come up with a “well-defined objective criteria” in a time-bound manner to assess these students. The board constituted a 13-member team to fix criteria for the assessment of Class 12 students on June 4.
Sisodia said that he has discussed the possible criteria for the evaluation of Class 12 students with various stakeholders. “First of all, our principle for evaluation should be that whatever method we adopt, it should be in the interest of students. And for this, we have to make decisions rising above the traditional principles. The past year has been very challenging for our students and their parents. Not all students had fair and equal opportunities to study and learn. So, we should not object if the results of these students are much better due to the proposed new evaluation process. If we prepare results on the basis of different sources and examinations, then perhaps it will do justice to all the students,” he said in the letter.
The Delhi deputy chief minister suggested that the board should give 30% weightage to Class 12 pre-boards, 20 % to the Class 11 final exams, and 20 % to the performance in the CBSE Class 10 exams. The remaining 30% marks should be allotted on the basis of the practical exams conducted by the schools, he suggested.
“The 20% weightage of class 10 exams should be on the basis of the subject in which the students had secured the highest marks in Class 10th. This is necessary because the subjects of Class 10 are very different from the subjects students study in Class 12,” he added.
Sisodia further said that the Centre should allow schools to fix the range of moderation at +/5 marks, unlike Class 10 where moderation of only +/- 2 marks is allowed. CBSE uses moderation to check on “inflation of marks” and to maintain consistency.
According to the evaluation criteria CBSE has set for Class 10 students, schools will have to award marks in consonance with their best performance in Class 10 in the last three academic years — 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20.
The selected year will be the reference year for schools, and subject-wise marks allotted by the schools for 2021 will be within a range of +/- 2 marks obtained by the school in the subject in the reference year.
“Delhi has started some new schools of excellence in which this was the first batch of Class 12 students. There is no historical reference available in the case of these schools. The reference year of such schools should be taken from the nearest School of Excellence so that there is no undue harm to the children here,” Sisodia said in the letter.
The Central government’s spokespersons did not respond to requests for comment.