From next year, Class X and XII board examinations conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will take place in February instead of March to provide more time to ensure “error-free evaluation”.
Moreover, the exams will be over within a month, unlike the current process where exams begin March 1 and end around April 20.
CBSE chairman R K Chaturvedi said that this would also advance the date of declaration of results, which generally come around the third or fourth week of May.
“The examinations should start around February 15 and we are also planning to complete them within a month,” Chaturvedi was quoted by Times of India as saying.
The board believes that the early results will also help students with the undergraduate admission process.
The move by the board is a part of the reforms in the evaluation process, which has come under the scanner due to glaring error in the practice.
“By April, vacations begin and the experienced teachers are not available. Therefore, advancing evaluation to mid-March will ensure we have the best teachers checking the answer scripts. Otherwise, in April during vacations, schools offer us only temporary, ad-hoc and newly-appointed teachers for the evaluation exercise as experienced teachers don't oblige,” said Chaturvedi.
According to him, this will also offer the board some breathing room to work on results in its bid to make them error-free.
Under the new scheme, the CBSE is expecting the best and experienced teachers to come for evaluation and it is also going to conduct two training sessions for the evaluators.
Each year, the evaluation process is done by around 50,000 teachers at 2,000 centres.
“Just like teachers' training, we are planning two evaluators' training sessions each year starting December 2017,” he said.
On evaluation, the CBSE chairman said that the board decided to scrap the practice since a very small number of students from those who apply for photocopies re-apply.
After the announcement of CBSE Class XII results this year, many error in totalling of marks came into light.
A Mumbai student named Mohammad Affan, who scored 80 per cent and above in all his subjects, scored just 50 in mathematics. After verification, his revised marks came as 90. In another instant, an economics student who was 'failed' with 9 marks ended up with 45 after verification.
Last month, the CBSE had scrapped the ‘marks moderation policy’ saying that the grace marks policy was no longer valid for students, including those who have appeared for the 2016-2017 board examinations. The move was termed by the Delhi High Court as “unfair” and “irresponsible”.
