Schools to get rid of grace marks

New Delhi: All state school education boards, including the CBSE, have decided to do away with allocating grace marks to their students from this academic year.

The school boards have also agreed that if grace marks are allocated to pass the students they would need to mention this in the marksheets. They have also agreed to introduce a uniform curriculum for Science and Maths prepared by the NCERT.

The decisions were taken at a meeting of state education board chiefs on Monday with the Union human resource development secretary (school education) Anil Swarup. The subject was taken up for discussion after the government felt that there should be a nationwide policy for grace marking and moderate marking for students.

The CBSE had petitioned the Central government regarding the same and appealed to the HRD ministry that its students would suffer during college admissions if other boards continue with their liberal marking and pushed for a need for a uniform policy on the issue.  

Sources stated that all school boards have accepted that they would do away with allocating grace marks to their students from this academic year itself.

“The students will only be marked according to their performance on the answer sheet and would not be allocated any additional marks,” sources added.  

However, it has been decided that if school boards want they can continue allocating grace marks to pass students. However, these boards would need to put in a transparent process for the same and put the details about this on their respective portals, sources added.

All school boards have also agreed that if grace marks are allocated to pass the students they would need to mention this in the marksheets. Currently there is no such practice of revealing or putting on record the grace marks received by students, sources added.

The meeting also decided that all school boards have agreed to introduce a common curriculum for Science and Maths.