A district-level examination committee will be set up to oversee the conduct of the Class V and VIII Public Exams at the end of the academic year.
A detailed set of guidelines have been framed by the Director of Elementary Education S. Sethurama Varma. The committee will ensure smooth conduct of the exam. It will carry out surprise inspections of examination centres, according to the guidelines.
The committee will be headed by the Chief Educational Officer (CEO) of the educational district. Officials from the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET), Directorate of Government Examinations (DGE), the heads of a higher secondary school and high school, a block development supervisor will be among those who will be part of the committee.
Students of Class V will have three papers in the final exam — English, Tamil and Mathematics. Students of Class VII will have five papers — English, Tamil, Mathematics, Science and Social Science.
The public exam for these classes will adapt the method of assessment where the written exam will be a summative assessment for 60 marks which will seek to evaluate basic concepts, practices and learning outcomes. The remaining 40 marks will be allocated after a formative assessment, which will be calculated across three terms.
At the end of the first term this year, students of Class V had taken their exam in all five subjects. R. Visalakshi, president, Tamil Nadu Private Schools’ Association, said it was a good move to have the public exam for students of Class V in Maths, English and Tamil alone.
“At the primary level, language and arithmetic skills of students should be given importance. The evaluation should be focused on identifying their skill level rather than encouraging rote learning and testing them on the content of their textbooks,” she noted.
For the allocation of examination centres, students of Class VIII should be allocated centres less than 3 km from their schools and students from Class V should not be made to travel more than 1 km from their schools, the guidelines stated.
Cluster Resource Centre
While hall tickets will be issued by the DGE, the evaluation of answer scripts will be carried out at the Cluster Resource Centre (CRC) level.
The process will be carried out under the supervision of the Cluster Resource Coordinators and Block Resource Teacher Educators (BRTEs) who will coordinate with the heads of schools as well.
Heads of schools will be expected to prepare a mark list and update the student-wise marks onto the EMIS portal.
