Friday, 18 June 2021 | PNS | New Delhi
The Centre on Thursday cleared the air on the cancelled Class 12 CBSE Board exams’ evaluation criteria saying that the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will be adopting a 30:30:40 formula for evaluation of marks based on results of Class 10, 11 and 12 respectively and the results will be declared by July end.
The Government informed the Supreme Court that 30 per cent marks will be based on Class 10 board exam, another 30 per cent from Class 11 and 40 per cent marks based on the performance in the unit, mid-term and pre-board tests of Class 12. The Supreme Court accepted the formula of CBSE and CISCE to evaluate the Class 12 students, whose board examinations were cancelled due to the Covid pandemic.
The components adopted by CISCE for arriving at the evaluation formula is — marks percentage in Class X board examinations, the project and practical work in the subjects, the performance of the candidates in the school examinations in the subjects in Classes XI and XII, measured through their best marks obtained in the two years (referred to as raw marks) and the best performance of the school in the last six years.
The Supreme Court also directed the boards to incorporate provisions for disputes resolution in their assessment schemes themselves for those students who may be dissatisfied with the marks awarded in the Class 12 board results. CBSE later announced that for such students exams will be conducted on physical mode and the candidates will have to register accordingly.
A special bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshari said, “After perusing the scheme presented by the concerned Boards, prima facie, we have no hesitation in accepting the same and permit the Boards to proceed on that basis”.
The CBSE said that for evaluating Class XII students, after their board examinations were cancelled for the academic year 2020-21, it has entered into consultative process with stakeholders to know the factual position of the students and the schools. The board said that consultation process was held with principals of affiliated schools, feedback was obtained from 229 Sahodaya School Complex comprising 7,734 schools and 13-members committee of experts.
It said that theory paper evaluation formula will be of 30 per cent weightage, to be given to Class X marks, 30 per cent weightage to Class XI marks and 40 per cent weightage to Class XII marks obtained in unit test/mid-term/pre-board exams. The CBSE said that 20 marks will be given for practical in Class-XII and the result will be declared by July 31.The CBSE scheme further elaborated that for Class X 30 per cent marks based on average theory component of best three performing subjects out of main five subjects will be taken.
For Class XI, 30 per cent marks based on theory component of final exam will be taken and for Class XII 40 per cent marks based on unit test/mid-term/pre-board exams will be taken.
“The marks of practical/internal assessment of Class XII will be on actual basis as uploaded by the school on the CBSE portal,” the CBSE said, adding that the total marks awarded should be in consonance with the past performance of the school in Class-XII board examinations.
The board said that each school shall form a result committee comprising five members (principal of the school as chairperson, two-senior most teachers of the school, teaching class-XII and two teachers from neighbouring senior secondary school teaching class-XII) and it may decide weightage to be given to each exam based on credibility and reliability of the assessment.
It said that the marks of Class XI and Class XII component will be awarded at school level; they will strictly not be comparable across schools due to variations in the quality of question papers, the evaluation, standard and processes, the mode of conduct of exams.
“Therefore, to ensure standardisation, each school will have to internally moderate the marks to account for the school level variations by using a reliable reference standard,” the CBSE said, adding that the historical performance of the school, in terms of the best overall performance in the previous three years’ Board examination, will be taken as the reference for moderating the marks assessed by the schools for 2020-21.
The board further said that in case, any student is not able to meet the qualifying criterion, he/she will be placed in “essential repeat” or “compartment category”. “Students who are not satisfied with assessment, done based on the policy will be given an opportunity to appear in examinations to be conducted by the board when conditions are conducive for holding the examinations. As per this policy, marks scored in later examination will be considered as final,” the CBSE said.
The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) also informed the top court that it will declare the Class XII results by July 20, after evaluating the students based on its well defined objective criteria. It has said that assessment of students would be done based on their marks obtained in Class X examination, performance in school examinations in class XI and XII along with practical and performance of school in the last six years.
The CISCE has said that among the factors used in the computation include best year for school from among the years 2015-2020, the best year for a school is the year when the school achieved the best average percentage in terms of the total scores (out of 500). Like CBSE, CISCE has also said that students who are not satisfied with the evaluation criteria may opt for giving the examination to be held when the COVID situation in India improves.
