Andhra Pradesh education department to change class 10 evaluation pattern due to GPA manipulation

VIJAYAWADA: The education department is planning to change the mode of examination for class ten students.

The government is considering the proposal following allegations that a few corporate and private school managements have been misusing the present Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) pattern, by giving more internal marks to their students to manipulate their GPA (grade point average).

According to officials, a final decision will be taken by the state government after studying the pros and cons of the CCE pattern.   

As per CCE, a maximum of 20 marks is allocated as internal mark based on formative and summative assessments and 80 marks for the final examination of each paper. The formative assessment and summative assessment will be key in calculating internal marks. All the project works of the students and valuation by teachers are to be sent to the respective DEO offices and the schools have to upload the internal marks on the website of the school education department.

However, many schools were not uploading the Formative Assessment marks on the website properly, affecting their final marks. As there is no proper checking by the education department officials, many corporate schools are allegedly misusing the CCE system by allocating 20/20 internal marks to all students.

To overcome the issue, the education department is planning to withdraw the CCE pattern and conduct the final examination for 100 marks, just like the earlier method.

However, the proposal is not finalised yet and the department is also looking at other options.

Speaking to Express, A Sairam, DEO of Srikakulam district said, “The department officials have asked us to send proposals and opinions for stopping the misuse of internal marks by corporate schools. We are looking at other options rather than completely avoiding the internal marks. We are also planning to implement the internal examination in a different way. A few other options are also on the cards.”

Private schools have welcomed the move.

Meanwhile, private school managements said that they are happy with the proposal and that they were against the CCE pattern right from the beginning. "We have opposed the CCE pattern from the beginning and now the officials are alleging that we are misusing it. Not all private schools are doing that, but it’s a fact that a few corporate schools are misusing it. We support the government proposal to withdraw the pattern," said N Srinivasa Rao, principal of Vivekananda private school.