CBSE Class 10 exams: High marks bonanza, not test formats, is real issue
columns
Updated: Dec 26, 2016 10:17 IST
The idea of making boards optional was to reduce the obsession
with high marks. But most students opted for internal exams because they
believed it would make scoring high marks easier.
(HT file photo)
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), the panel most
Delhi schools are affiliated to, has decided to bring back Class 10
board exams. The same board had made the ‘stressful’ exams optional for
the Class of 2011 and introduced the continuous and comprehensive
evaluation (CCE) system through year-round tests and a grading system.
In
its consultations with the stakeholders, the CBSE found that school
principals and parents wanted out of the dual-system and asked for the
reintroduction of the mandatory board exam for Class 10. The internal
assessment is likely to carry 20% weightage along with the board exams
for the Class of 2018.
The CCE was started with the aim to shift
focus from testing memory alone to judging a range of abilities such as
imagination and creativity. Reducing stress was to be the natural
fallout. But it ended up suffering from the same structural problems
that plagued the previous systems.
The CCE required well-trained
teachers who could understand and rate kids continuously on the basis of
projects, class tests and extra-curricular activities. This called for a
bigger investment in the teaching staff, which very few schools were
willing to make. The teachers who were expected to roll out the reform
were themselves a product of the old rote system.
Until 2011, a
bachelor’s degree in Education alone could land one a teacher’s job.
Then the Union human resource ministry introduced the Central Teacher
Eligibility Test for BEd before they were hired in central
government-run schools. Delhi adopted the same exam for state schools.
But the results have been dismal at 7% in 2013 and 13.53% in 2015.
Unless
it is from a reputed university, most BEd degrees or diplomas are
suspect. In 2012, a Supreme Court-appointed committee headed by the
former chief justice of India JS Verma found that of the 291
teacher-training institutes it inspected in Maharashtra, only 34 were
fit to continue. That was just one state.
The
CCE offered an opportunity to launch a continuous evaluation of the
skills of the existing teaching staff in both government and private
schools. But authorities seemed content with perfunctory training so
they could get the new system started. In
an article in HT last
week, former NCERT director Krishna Kumar wrote that there was no
uniformity in training and how “lack of coordination and clarity on
roles and responsibilities expectedly resulted in systemic chaos”.
The
idea of making boards optional was to reduce the obsession with high
marks. But most students opted for internal exams because they believed
it would make scoring high marks easier. Their schools did not
disappoint. Last year, almost 12% students who cleared Class 10 under
CBSE got a perfect score. The previous year, it was 7%. Some Delhi
schools even flaunted 60% of their students in the top bracket of 90%
scorers or more.
In 2004-05, in the name of de-stressing, the CBSE
shifted its policy from testing what a student does not know to what
she actually knows. Long answer type questions were reduced to minimise
subjectivity and objective type questions were introduced. As a result,
students are scoring 100% even in English and History.
But to
clear the Class 12 exam, students must still take the board exam where
the pass percentage this year was 83% as compared to Class 10’s 96%. It
gets progressively difficult to score as one proceeds to higher
standards, but the drop in overall performance in just two years tells
that all’s not well.
Even the Class 12 board throws up too many
high-scorers. Reality dawns when they compete for few good options for
undergraduate courses at Delhi University. For most popular courses in
top colleges, cut-offs consistently stay above 95% and the seats fill up
fast. Suddenly, nobody is sure how good is good enough.
Teachers
and parents are the best judge of their wards’ aptitude, interest and
capability. It is criminal to induce a false sense of academic
accomplishment and expectations by awarding high marks undeservingly.
Switching between board exams and internal assessment will not make a
difference unless the system gets real.
Source:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/high-marks-bonanza-not-test-formats-is-real-issue/story-DKIcr87okg368zXjQS9ntJ.html
