After ten days of gathering inputs and deliberating on how to assign marks for Class XII students from the Central Board of Secondary Education, an expert panel is largely in favour of using a combination of final exam scores from Class X and XI, and internal marks from Class XII. Officials say the panel may take a few more days for a final decision, although it was scheduled to submit its recommendation on Monday.
Class XII board examinations, scheduled to be held in May, were cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Announcing the decision on June 1, Prime Minister Narendra Modi added that “CBSE will take steps to compile the results of class XII students as per a well-defined objective criteria in a time-bound manner.” Subsequently, on June 4, CBSE announced a 12-member panel of stakeholders to decide that criteria within ten days.
Although that deadline ends on Monday, two members of the panel told The Hindu that it was likely to be extended by a few days.
The panel has consulted with CBSE principals, as well as with the centrally-run Kendriya Vidyalaya and Navodaya Vidyalaya schools to get their feedback. With all Delhi State government schools affiliated to the CBSE, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia wrote to Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank on Friday as well. His suggestion is to give 30% weightage to Class XII internal pre-board exams, and 20% weightage each to Class X board exams and Class IX internal final exams. This would add up to the 70% score given for theory exams, leaving the remaining 30% to Class XII practical exam marks.
“Most stakeholders are in favour of something similar to the Delhi government proposal, but we have not reached a final consensus yet,” one member of the panel told The Hindu. “It was felt that this is the best option to judge a consistent student. Class X marks would be considered reliable as they were board exams. And we will also enforce the school moderation method to ensure that internal marks are not inflated beyond the school’s usual mark distribution in previous years.”
Another option would be to use the internal marks from pre-board exams, unit tests and project work in Class XII only.
“Most stakeholders were not in favour of this as it was felt that not all students may have been able to attend exams this year because of COVID,” said the panel member, adding that there was a higher possibility of schools inflating marks using this option.
The panel is not likely to recommend that only grades be assigned, rather than specific marks, said the member. “Yes, the central universities may use a common entrance test for admissions and so not use Class XII marks at all. But most State universities and smaller universities are dependent on Class XII marks for admission. We cannot assign grades alone,” added the member.