At present it’s mandatory to secure 33% in class 10 board exam and 33% in internal assessment but CBSE wants to change that.
New Delhi: The Central Board of Secondary Examination (CBSE) may soon make it easier for its class 10 students to pass their board exams.
Students appearing for the class 10 exams may soon be exempted from securing 33 per cent marks in theory (board exam) and the internal assessment separately, authoritative sources have told ThePrint.
CBSE is likely to take a call on the issue this week. If implemented, it would mean students have to just achieve a combined 33 per cent of marks to pass the exam.
The decision is expected to bring relief to lakhs of students.
The board had earlier this year relaxed the mandatory criteria of separate pass marks for class 10 students who appeared for the board exams, which had been stopped for several years.
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In a circular issued to all CBSE-affiliated schools across the country, however, it said that the decision to implement an overall 33 per cent pass mark criteria was for this year’s batch of students only.
A senior Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry official told ThePrint that the relaxation could now be granted for the next year too.
“The relaxation was given as a one-time measure but we feel that there is a need to extend it for next year too,” the senior HRD official said. “Students will not be required to secure separate 33 per cent marks for theory and practicals. This will give them the much-needed relief. CBSE will take a final call on it”.
The class 10 exams were made mandatory from this year after seven years. In 2009, the HRD ministry had said the class 10 exams will be made optional and it implemented it in 2010-11.
Exams in February, March
From 2019, the board exams for vocational subjects in classes 10 and 12 will begin from the latter half of February 2019 and the exam for all the core subjects will be conducted in March 2019, the CBSE said.
HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar had also said that no major changes would be made to the exam process midway to ensure students are not affected.
CBSE has also said the decision to conduct board exams for vocational subjects was taken after the Delhi High Court order dated 11 July 2018, which had directed Delhi University to fix the cut-off dates for admission to undergraduate courses only after CBSE had declared its results, including that of re-evaluation. The board offers 40 vocational subjects in class 12 and 15 in class 10.
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Overall, CBSE offers its students 240 subjects, of which only the language paper is compulsory for class 12 students and language, mathematics, science and social science is compulsory for class 10 students. Apart from the compulsory papers, students are allowed to select any combination of subjects.
“So far, exams began in March and went on till the end of April to accommodate all combination of subjects. Because of this, the results were pushed to the end of May,” said a CBSE official. “It delayed the result for re-evaluation as it was released in July thus putting students at a disadvantage when it came to undergraduate admission in Delhi University”.