LUCKNOW: After the central government cancelled the Board examinations in view of the continuing Covid-19 pandemic across the country, the decision came as a relief to many but saddened those who had been studying hard for it.
The decision triggered many doubts among students like the impact of the assessment criteria, how will they gain admission to universities, and how will it affect their career prospects.
Former CBSE chief Ashok Ganguly said the assessment criteria – 30% marks of top three subjects in Class 10, 30% marks of Class 11, and 40% of Class 12 internal exams – is simple and workable but needs a cautious approach on its implementation to ensure that the assessment process has reliability, validity and credibility.
“I doubt that the interim measure taken by the Board will do any justice to meritorious students.
Though the examination bodies have tried their best to do away with arbitrariness, there are conflicts of interest which may creep in during implementation,” he said.
Ganguly raised three important issues.
“Firstly, the Board needs to be careful with secondary data like Class 11 results and other examinations like half-yearly and pre-Board.
This data, which is not with the Board, has chances of being fudged.
Secondly, the Boards should consider only institutionalised examinations like half-yearly instead of pre-boards and unit tests.
Lastly, there is a lack of clarity on the best of three subjects in Class 10,” Ganguly added.
He said the possibility of fudging of marks in respect to secondary data can be arrested with moderation.
“CBSE must compare the marks with the mean of each subject in each school last year, followed by moderation.
I think we need to ensure that no further exams are conducted now by any school.
Only the examinations that have already been conducted should be considered,” he said.
Batting for a good mix of summative assessments and continuous and comprehensive evaluation, Ganguly said time had come for transformation of the Board examinations.
“Looking into the pandemic and unpredictability, we can no longer depend on one short-term exam.
With continuous evaluation, assessment can be done in a scientific manner even in times of uncertainty,” he said.
Seconding him, principal of Delhi Public School, Varanasi, Mukesh Shelat said assessment renaissance was the need of the hour.
“Right from kindergarten, we need to prepare students for self-winning, focus on multiple intelligence, learning styles and project-based learning,” Shelat said, adding that the Gurukul system was perfect as it focused on blended learning.
According to Shelat, there has to be a 360-degree assessment by peers, teachers, and parents.
He suggested that the Board needs to get the marks of all tests, including half-yearly exams of Class 9 and 11, besides Class 10 and 12, uploaded on their portal.
“It has to be a data-driven school landscape now.
Transparency of data is easily possible.
This can be used if there is some discrepancy in results,” said Shelat.
Unhappy with the evaluation criteria of the Boards, founder of Lucknow’s City Montessori School, Jagdish Gandhi, pitched for Board exams.
“Fearing Covid-19 wave, everything should not be stopped.
Crowded places like malls and markets, which can be a Covid-spreader have been opened but schools, which offer controlled environment to students, are still shut.
Students are losing out on studies,” he said.
Stating that students have totally opposed the marking formula announced by the Boards, Gandhi said, “Students want Boards to evaluate them on 100%.
Also, no divisions will be declared this year which will ruin the future of meritorious students seeking admission in good universities, including outside India.” “After the marking formula, students are asking for their exact scores,” said principal, Maharshi Patanjali Vidya Mandir, Sushmita Kanungo.
Citing a survey done at her school, she said nearly 50% of Class 12 students said they were unhappy with the existing assessment model.
“The average or above average students are on a winning side but meritorious ones are definitely dissatisfied and feel they are losing out.
They felt they would have done better in Boards which was not the case with pre-boards,” she said.
Ganguly said the confusion was primarily due to the 30% weightage to best three subjects in Class 10 board examination results.
“Instead, they could have kept it straight, 30% marks in each subject and then adding it to respective subject in Class 12.
For instance, if marks scored in English and social science are the highest, there is no point adding it to physics, chemistry and biology,” he said, adding that the directives from the Boards must have clarity and rationale and there should be no ambiguity.
He felt that the Boards, instead of issuing lengthy directives, should have made it concise and brief.
“The problem is that most schools are raising concerns, questions and queries in computation process,” he said.
More importantly, it may not be possible to get a bell-shaped curve in distribution of marks.
It may be negatively skewed which means there will be more students getting 90% or 95% marks.
“To avoid the crazy situation in undergraduate admissions, moderation of marks is extremely important, after carefully adding primary and secondary data so that it gives a resemblance of a bell-shaped distribution,” Ganguly said.
To do away with disparity in evaluation of Class 12 results, Lucknow University vice-chancellor Prof Alok Rai announced holding of entrance tests for UG admissions which are likely to be held in August.
“With entrance tests, students can get admission to good institutions based on merit which is ignored in their marksheet this year,” Prof Rai said.