CBSE DECIDES NOT TO DISPLAY GRACE MARKS ON MARK SHEETS

In a big relief to students, grace marks awarded to them will not be printed on their mark sheets as proposed by the CBSE earlier.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will follow the moderation policy and will award grace marks but the mark sheets will not display it. The board will declare the Class 12 results on Sunday.

“We will follow the directives of the high court and go ahead as per our own moderation policy. But as decided earlier, we will not mention this (grace marks) on the mark sheet as was decided earlier,” said a senior official.

Grace marks are given in cases where a student’s score narrowly misses the pass-mark.

In April, the board along with 32 boards had taken a decision to do away with moderation and had also decided to display grace marks on the mark sheets.

However, at that time, a few states expressed apprehension over mark-sheets reflecting grace marks, saying it could be seen as a stigma but others argued it would be unfair for those who pass without the grace marks.

The board had earlier decided on dropping the moderation policy to “remove arbitrariness and inflation of marks” but a high court directive said the policy be applied for this academic session.

The board then decided not to make any changes this year. Over 18,000 schools are affiliated to the CSBE. As many as 10,98,891 candidates – 6,38,865 boys and 4,60,026 girls – from 10,678 schools registered for the CBSE Class 12 examinations this year.

There was a 2.82% increase in registration for the 2017 examination, as compared to the previous year. Around 10,67,900 students — 6,21,259 boys and 4,46,641 girls —had taken it then.