End of OMR for classes 10 and 12 from next year

AHMEDABAD: Come 2019, class 10 and 12 science students will have to bid goodbye to the highly scoring OMR (Optical Mark Reader) paper worth 50 marks.

The Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB) has submitted a proposal to the state education department to adopt the National Council of Education, Research and Training (NCERT) syllabus and the central board's exam pattern in both SSC and HSC exams.

Education minister Bhupendra Chudasama said: "The government is actively considering the GSHSEB's proposal to accept the NCERT exam pattern followed by the central board. The decision will be finalized soon." Sources in state education department said that NCERT syllabus has been adopted in class 9 and 11in current academic year and the same will be introduced in class 10 and 12 from 2019.

Move to CBSE pattern triggered by mass cheating in OMR papers

Highly placed sources in state education department said that NCERT syllabus has been adopted in class 9 and 11 in current academic year and the same will be introduced in class 10 and 12 from 2019.

"Following this, state will discontinue the state's boards exam pattern of 50 marks OMR paper with multiple choice questions and 50 marks descriptive paper. Instead, the class 10 and 12 science students will be administered question paper following CBSE pattern which is descriptive in nature," the source close to the development said.

The GSHSEB officials admitted that the trigger to adopt CBSE exam pattern has come from large scale complaints of mass copying especially in the OMR papers in class 10. This year, 450 cases of mass copying were registered where students had scored 45-50 marks in OMR paper but barely able to scrape up to 5 marks in descriptive paper.

In 2017 and 2016, these numbers were 650 and 553 respectively.

Board officials said that the move is not likely to adversely impact the state board students. "GSHSEB mandated students to pass in both internal and external exams. In CBSE pattern, the weightage of board exams and internal exams of school is 80 marks and 20 marks respectively. If the student has got good internal scores, it will easy to clear the exams," said a top source.