Kerala CBSE School Managements' Association has urged the Union Education Minister to rectify the disparity and deficiencies noticed by the school authorities in the policy for assessment and tabulation of marks for the Class 10 students, whose exams were cancelled in view of the pandemic crisis.
It will lead to injustice and cause hardship to students who are completing studies in Class 10 this year. As per the guidelines, the subject-wise marks to be assessed for the year 2020-21 should be within a range +/-2 marks in the subjects in the reference year (previous year). However, the overall average marks for the school assessed in 2020-21 “for all the five main subjects should not exceed the overall average marks obtained by the school in the reference year”, it said.
“If this guideline is to be implemented, brilliant and hardworking students in Class 10 will suffer the consequences of lesser marks and grades on the basis of the average marks in the previous year for no fault of theirs,” said T. P. M. Ibrahim Khan, president of the CBSE Schools Management Association.
Policy amendment
“Many students were facing problems as their performance in the model examination and other exams conducted by the school was much higher than the average marks to be awarded to them on the basis of the guideline. Hence the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) may be directed to amend the above policy by providing discretion to the teachers, who are continuously assessing the students right from the start of the academic year,” Mr. Khan said in a letter sent to Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.
The association said that the guidelines restrained the schools from awarding marks on the performance of the students in various online assessments held both online and offline even though the board had asked to tabulate the marks based on the internal assessment.
More weightage
Most of the schools had conducted the model examination through offline mode and the question papers were taken from the CBSE website. So, it is only essential in the interest of justice that more weightage may be given to the internal assessment conducted by the school, both offline and online, for determining the marks in the final assessment, it said.
The letter urged the Union Education Minister to delete or modify the directions included in the paragraph 6 (B) of the guidelines by giving importance to the internal assessment made by the teachers either in the offline or online mode and on the basis of the performance of the students throughout the year.
