BENGALURU: A day after scrapping the II PUC exams and announcing a gradation method based on I PUC marks, the government slipped in an addition – Class 10 marks will also be considered for evaluation.
On Saturday, primary and secondary education minister S Suresh Kumar asked the Department of Pre-university Education to consider SSLC marks too in evaluating II PUC students, saying said it would help make it more reliable.
The II PUC grades will be based on average score of Class 10 and I PUC exams.
On Friday, the II PUC exams were cancelled and students were to be evaluated on performance in the I PUC exams held in February 2020.
The DPUE has asked the SSLC Board to provide scores of students.
The decision was received well by parents and experts in the city.
‘Counting SSLC marks for PU will help reduce students’ stress’Krishna Kumar, a parent, told STOI there was a discussion in a parents’ WhatsApp group about how students do not take their I PUC exams seriously and this would affect their grades in II PUC.
“Most students take their SSLC exams more seriously.
Higher the average, better it will be for students,” he said.
Another parent Bhargavi P said it’s a welcome move, but requested the government to come up with plans and decisions at one go as daily changes add to their anxiety.“Every day, we wake up to an update.
I appreciate the effort by the departments to ease our worry, but I hope there are concrete decisions, not constant changes,” she said.
KR Venugopal, vice-chancellor, Bangalore University, also said statistically, the addition of Class 10 scores would give an average closer to reality and is better than considering only one performance.
B Sadashive Gowda, principal, Vidyavardhaka College of Engineering, said the solution is appropriate as it helps reduce stress for parents and students.
“The majority of students who perform well in Class 10 also do well in II PUC.
It will help all of them,” he said, adding that a small percentage of students don’t perform well in Class 10 as it is remotely connected with their professional courses.
Niranjanaradhya VP, senior fellow and programme head, Universalisation of Equitable Quality Education Programme, Centre for Child and the Law, National Law School of India University said: “The ideal way of assessing grades of these children is by considering Class 10 exam scores as the main criteria and I PU scores as supplementary.
It’s because the learning of these students in I PUC has been uneven due to the pandemic and most students don’t take I PUC as seriously as II PUC.”