New Delhi: The process of formulating an evaluation plan for CBSE Class 10 students appears to have begun with many schools across the country sharing details of their internal assessment exercises with the board, ThePrint has learnt.
The Ministry of Education had announced last week that Class 10 board exams for the 2020-21 academic session stand cancelled on account of the Covid-19 pandemic. In a statement, the government said the board will develop an “objective criterion” for the same.
Speaking to ThePrint a week later, several schools in Bengaluru, Mysuru, Delhi, Noida, Bhubaneswar and Surat said they have shared with the CBSE information on the number of exams — both online and offline — conducted in the year and the kind of evaluation methods used. One school said the information was being collected by CBSE coordinators in different cities.
This information, sources said, will be used by the CBSE to devise the aforementioned “objective criterion”, and assess and declare students’ Class 10 results.
ThePrint reached CBSE spokesperson Rama Sharma for a comment on the report, but she declined to offer one.
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‘There should be no toppers’
Mansoor Ali Khan, member of the board of management at Delhi Public School (DPS) Bengaluru and Mysuru said the CBSE had asked the school to “share information regarding our internals, preboards and assessment pattern”. “We have already shared the same with them. Both from our Bengaluru school and Mysuru school,” he added.
DPS Surat Principal Vamsi Krishna said the same thing.
“There is no official communication in this regard by the CBSE so far, but board-appointed city coordinators have been collecting information from schools in their respective cities,” he added.
“For example, in Surat, the city coordinator asked schools for information such as the number of exams the school has conducted throughout the year, how many were online, how many were offline, and the kind of evaluation method used,” he said.
The city coordinators, he added, will compile all the information and share it with the board.
Modern Public School in Delhi’s Shalimar Bagh area said they had sent CBSE details such as the mode in which periodic tests were conducted, and the mode in which mid-term and preboards were conducted.
Speaking to ThePrint, Principal Alka Kapur said promoting students based on internal assessment would be the best course of action considering the current circumstances.
“I think the best course of action would be to promote the students based on schools’ internal assessment under Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE), which can then be relayed to the board. Also, I think we should refrain from grading students, assigning ranks and declaring toppers because doing so would be mere speculation since the exams couldn’t actually be conducted,” she added.
“So, I think general promotion under CCE is the only just way of handling the situation at hand.”
The Bhubaneswar-based ODM Public School said they have submitted their internal assessments to the board, but “are currently unsure about what exactly is going to be the method of calculation”.
“In the current situation, we believe that the calculation might be based on preboard marks but, most probably, they might just decide to promote students (as it happens generally from one class to another) and provide grades,” ODM Public School Director Swoyan Satyendu said.
Two Noida-based private schools also confirmed that they had shared details about their internal assessments with the CBSE.
“It’s important that CBSE comes up with evaluation guidelines soon enough, we need to start classes for those who have been promoted to 11th standard,” said the principal of one school, who didn’t want himself or his school’s name to be published. “I think preboards should be a good enough criterion for the board to evaluate students.”
Schools are now awaiting guidelines from the CBSE in order to prepare results for Class 10 students. Classes for the next session start from the first week of May in most schools.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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