Academic support scheme to be part of school assessment system makeover

The State’s General Education department has kickstarted the revision of the school assessment system.

First of the changes to be introduced is a comprehensive academic support programme for students as a followup to the yearend examinations.

In 2019, the Parliament did away with the nodetention policy through an amendment to the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009. Many States have followed suit. Even though Kerala is likely to continue with the policy, it is felt that the annual examinations are not taken seriously enough by teachers (more than that by students) as the State follows ‘all promotion’ till class VIII.

Students till class VIII in State schools are awarded grades till ‘E’ (the lowest). The ‘E’ grade is meant to indicate that a student is not eligible for promotion. With the ‘all pass’ policy in place, teachers tend to give the ‘E’ grade students ‘D’ grade and prepare the promotion list. The learning outcomes that students should achieve every year are not met when this happens. It is these students that the government plans to provide individual attention to as part of the academic support programme.

The plan is for teachers to evaluate the answer scripts of the final examinations without fail, identify the students who perform badly, and provide them special attention in the subjects they require support in from the middle of April itself.

After a month when the schools reopen for the new academic session, the students will be given an orientation the first two weeks and then made to sit for another assessment to ensure they have met the learning outcomes. This will be highlighted in the vacation training programme for teachers.

How this support should be given can be devised at the school level itself in association with the school resource group and the parentteacher association.

This will just be the start though. The support programme will be taken up after the quarterly and halfyear examinations too.

Discussion are also on to bring back the requirement that students must pass the theory exam individually in the SSLC examinations from the next academic year. This will ensure that students get minimum marks in their written examination, beyond what they are awarded in internal assessments. At present, it is enough for students to get minimum marks for the internal and written examination taken together. As students are more often than not given full or near full marks in internal assessment, they need very few marks in the external examination to pass in the subject concerned, and so tend to take it a bit easy. Most other States and the CBSE require students to secure pass marks in each subject of the external examination. Even the State’s higher secondary has this criteria in place, say officials, pointing out that this will make sure that students appearing for the SSLC examinations are more attentive in class. It becomes important also because regulating internal assessment is a tough proposition.