According to Sanjay Kumar, Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy, the draft of this report has been shared with all the boards. After getting their suggestions, the final guidelines will be prepared. The purpose of this entire process is to bring uniformity in the syllabus, exam dates and evaluation pattern of school boards across the country. So that after 12th, students can get equal opportunities in various national competitive examinations.
What is the situation now and what should happen?
Head and CEO of Parakh, Prof. Indrani Bhaduri says that bringing uniformity in the syllabus and evaluation process of school education boards is the need of the hour. The National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) and the National Curriculum Framework (School Education) have also recommended redesigning the evaluation process and comprehensive reforms for holistic education and development. Vocational and skill courses should also be promoted.
Currently, 38.80% of school boards have included art and craft as a compulsory subject, 61.11% have physical education, while only 9.52% of boards have made skill subjects compulsory. Also, 40% of boards are offering only one supplementary option, 29% two supplementary, and 7% of boards have not offered any supplementary option at all.
Prof. Bhaduri believes that 70% weightage should be given to formative assessment in class 9, 50% in class 10, 40% in class 11 and 30% in class 12. While the remaining 70% weightage in class 12 should be given to written examination. he/she said that there is a need to prepare common guidelines for the boards by adopting best practices, so that all students get equal opportunities.
compulsory and optional subjects
Science, Social Science and Language-1 are the only three subjects which are compulsory in all 69 education boards. Art and Craft is compulsory in 38.89% boards and Physical Education- Sports- Yoga is compulsory in 61.11% boards. The government is focusing the most on skill courses, but skill subjects are compulsory in only 9.52% boards. 90.48% have kept it as an optional subject.
95.65% boards have made Maths compulsory in class 10. Computer Application is compulsory in 20% boards. The report says that as many boards as possible should include machine learning, AI, data science, cyber security, blockchain technology, cloud computing, coding application development, audio-video production.
compartment exam chances
While there is talk of conducting board exams twice a year to reduce the stress of board exams, there are 7.41% boards that do not give students a single chance to appear in compartment (supplementary) exams. 40.74% boards give one chance, 29.63% give two chances and 22.22% boards give a chance to appear in more than two compartment exams.
The difference needs to be bridged!
Currently, 25% boards give more than 50% MCQ questions and 32% boards have 40% very short type questions. In some boards, more than 90% questions are easy while in some, 50% are easy. This difference has to be removed. After seeing this huge difference, Parakh has recommended that in class 9, 70% weightage should be given to formative and 30% weightage to summative (written exam). In class 10, this ratio should be 50-50. In class 11, 60% and in class 12, 70% weightage should be given to written exam. In subjects like Vocational Education, Art Education, Physical Education and Well Being, 25% weightage should be given to written exam and 75% should be for demonstration based assessment.
