TIME TO REASSESS
With class 10 & 12 board examinations either cancelled or postponed, anxious students, parents and teachers look to the various education boards for a roadmap
Anxious class 10 and 12 students, their parents and teachers are looking to the education boards for a roadmap
ON APRIL 14, WHILE INDIA WAS being buffetted by a second wave of the coronavirus, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) decided to cancel board examinations for class 10 and postpone the examinations for class 12, which were scheduled to be held between May 4 and June 10. The decision was taken at a meeting attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.
Another pan-India board, the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), has cancelled the class 10 and postponed the class 12 examinations. The International Baccalaureate (IB) board has gone a step further and also cancelled its class 12 exams and announced that it will take the “non-examination route” in India. Several state boards, too, have either cancelled or postponed their examination or are contemplating doing so.
While these steps have come as a relief to parents who feared exposing their children to the dangerous virus, the resulting uncertainty over class 12 board exams has left students, parents and teachers anxious. Many fear a replay of last year, when the national lockdown was announced while class 10 and 12 students were in the midst of writing their board examinations. In June 2020, the CBSE had announced that it would not be conducting any of the remaining examinations and would evaluate students through an alternative marking system. “The lack of clarity is proving to be a source of nervousness and confusion for us,” says Advit Bajaj, a class 12 student of Delhi’s Prudence School.
FUTURE IMPERFECT
Though there is a consensus that cancelling exams was the right course of action, parents and students now seek a definitive roadmap from the authorities. A father of a class 10 student from Bengaluru feels the move has left many hard-working children disheartened as a school’s internal exams may be susceptible to favouritism. “Internal exams were just a work-in-progress for several students who hope to be able to peak in their boards,” says the parent who wished to not be named.
Some even blame the boards for failing to anticipate such a situation, especially after last year’s experience. “The CBSE should have already had an alternative plan ready,” says former NCERT director J.S. Rajput. Moreover, the possibility of internal assessment by schools for even class 12 students is causing resentment in many. However, according to the education minister, “If a student is not satisfied with the assessment, he/ she can appear for the examination once the situation is normal.” The education ministry said in a statement that the results of class 10 will be prepared on the basis of “an objective criterion to be developed by the board”.
Delhi-based Rupesh Kapoor, whose two daughters were supposed to take the class 10 and class 12 board exams, feels that any system that uses internal assessment to arrive at final marks would be “prone to lacunae”. Several teachers also feel that, over the past year, schools have not had the kind of engagement with students required for a 360-degree assessment of their performance. As most schools remained shut for the better part of the last academic session, classes were conducted virtually, limiting the scope of engagement between teachers and students.
“Schools should just employ a ‘pass or fail’ system since class 10 marks hardly matter anywhere,” says Kapoor. Several experts echo Kapoor’s point and argue that the significance of the class 10 board exams is exaggerated. “Why do we need a board examination in class 10 at all? Why not in class 9 or 11?” asks Rukmini Banerji, CEO of Pratham Education Foundation. Rekha Krishnan, principal of Delhi’s Vasant Valley School,
agrees and sees this as an opportunity for CBSE and other boards to end class 10 board exams. “Things have changed and schools and students don’t need a third party (board exams), to tell them whether to take science, commerce or arts,” she says.
For class 12 exams, the future course of action will be decided after a review of the situation on June 1. Last year, the CBSE had devised an alternative marking system to impute the marks of students in papers in which they did not appear—the marks in each remaining paper were calculated by taking the average of the best three papers for students who had written four; of two best papers for those who had written three; and included internal marks for those students who had written two papers or less. Later, in September 2020, the board had held optional “improvement exams”.
This year, with no examination held yet, class 12 students are worried at the prospect of a new mode of assessment. They simply want an assurance from the government that examinations will be held, even if at a later date. “We will keep preparing, but they must not tell us later that there will be no exams,” says Nimira Fatima, a class 12 commerce student in Delhi’s Rajkamal Saraswati Vidya Mandir school.
Sia Malhotra, another class 12 commerce student of Delhi’s GD Goenka Public School, doesn’t share Fatima’s enthusiasm for a “normal” board examination. “We have been attending online classes since March 2020. In subjects like accountancy, it is extremely difficult to understand the practical aspects online. Moreover, we had to attempt subjective questions on Google Forms during internal assessments. Now, we are expected to attempt long answer-type questions with hardly any practice,” says Malhotra.
Several experts in the education sector share her concern. Though some point out that she is still better-placed than the students in government schools and in rural areas. “Students, particularly in remote areas, did not even have access to online education. So, most are not even prepared for regular examination,” says Bishwajit Kumar Singh, administrative secretary, School Education Department, Jammu and Kashmir and former commissioner of the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti.
For Rajput, the more serious issue is compromising students’ education. While the CBSE has reduced the syllabus for the academic year of 2020-21 by 30 per cent, completing even the reduced syllabus has proved difficult for many. “Even if Covid vanishes from the world tomorrow by some miracle, most students are not ready for any examination,” he says. The uncertainty over examination also has implications for college admissions, particularly in international institutes.
Schools and authorities, meanwhile, are trying their best to keep the situation calm and promise a fair and unbiased marking system. “I am sure that the best will be given to all students, irrespective of the boards. Most probably, the stu
“The NEW EDUCATION POLICY has already proposed a set of COMPREHENSIVE REFORMS in the examination process. While implementing those will need long-term planning, the pandemic could work as a catalyst”
— AMIT KHARE,
Higher Education Secretary, Ministry of Education “Things have changed. Students NO LONGER NEED THE CBSE board exams to tell them whether to take science, commerce or arts”
— REKHA KRISHNAN,
Principal, Vasant Valley School, Delhi