Schools to end (dis)grace

Thiruvananthapuram: There are several unanswered questions on the  central government’s proposal to abolish  moderation and grace marks.  As per reports, 32 school boards have agreed to scrap the policy of marks moderation and grace marks at a meeting organised by the CBSE and attended by Union School Education Secretary Anil Swarup in Delhi on Monday.  The participants agreed to publish their grace marks policy on the official website and also disclose the number of grace marks awarded to a candidate. However, the state government has to decide on discontinuing the grace marks as education is in the concurrent list.   The centre has set up a working group headed by CBSE chairman Rakesh Kumar Chaturvedi with members from the ICSE and states of Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Manipur to resolve the issues over the decision.

The Kerala government has not yet decided to do away with grace marks, though it had discontinued moderation long ago.  There were complaints that the  system of awarding grace marks for state syllabus schools was disadvantageous to the CBSE and ICSE students as marks were   made a criterion for engineering admission on the basis of the recommendations of an expert committee on entrance examination submitted to the state government in 2008. The engineering admissions  were being conducted from 2009  as per the recommendations made by the expert committee which wanted the state engineering rank list to be prepared by giving equal weightage to plus-two marks and the entrance mark after a normalisation process. With grace marks being added to the total marks for the public examinations, many state syllabus students get more  marks for the qualifying examinations, giving them advantage   over their CBSE counter parts.

Grab of story published in DC earlier this year

Normalisation is a method for bringing marks scored by candidates in different plus-two board examinations in the country and abroad to the same plane. The data of each of these boards for the past five years will be used for countering mark variation of different boards. If any board failed to provide the data for the process, the data of CBSE would be used.  This is because the admission to engineering courses is based on equal weightage of 50:50 marks obtained in the entrance examination for engineering in the entrance examinations and the grade/marks obtained for mathematics, physics and chemistry put together in the final year of the qualifying examination.  The complaint was that with the valuation being liberal and grace marks awarded for excellence in arts and sports and participation in NCC and scouts, the state syllabus students get higher ranks for the engineering entrance.

The reports that entrance examinations were advantageous for state syllabus students also resulted in a heavy rush from CBSE stream to SSLC stream by those who passed out of tenth standard.   Students with CBSE background could score high marks in the higher secondary examination in the state syllabus helping them secure high rank in entrance examination. Kerala CBSE Managements Association general secretary Indira Rajan told Deccan Chronicle that the CBSE has not been awarding moderation or grace marks. The decision of the state government to award grace marks was resulting in the lowering of  standards in state schools. However, as marks were also a criterion  for engineering admissions this helped the state syllabus students. The centre could not interfere as education is in the concurrent list. It is for  the state government to decide  whether it wanted transparency or not, Ms Rajan said.

All-Kerala Private School Teachers Union (AKSTU) general secretary N. Sreekumar said that any decision on doing away with the grace marks can be taken only at the state level. The centre has no power to interfere in it.   However, there has been a demand to reform the present grace mark system. One proposal is to add the grace marks as a separate entity in the mark list without including them in the total marks. These marks can be considered at the time of the college admissions, Mr Sreekumar said.   Kochi-based urologist Dr N.K. Sanil Kumar said that grace marks are advantageous to state syllabus students for engineering admissions. There are also complaints of malpractices during the youth festivals and also in the name of sports for getting students grace marks. However, many students lost their academic days for participating in programmes like NCC, NSS and scouts and guides. The students who take part in  extracurricular activities should be compensated for their loss of academic days. The  government has not yet devised a foolproof method for awarding grace marks, Mr Kumar said.

Action against ‘sales’ at schools

The CBSE  has warned of strict action  against schools which engage in commercial activities like the sale of books, uniforms and stationery in  violation of  norms. In a circular, it has asked the schools to adhere to the provisions of its affiliation bylaws banning such activities. Ms Indira Rajan, general secretary of Kerala CBSE School Managements Association, told Deccan Chronicle that the parents,  who do not know where  the textbooks are available, depend on the schools for the same. Moreover, tie and belt are specific to each school and it is difficult to get  them in the market. Even in the case of uniforms, schools sell them to ensure that there is a standard norm, Ms Rajan said.     The CBSE should put in place a regulatory mechanism to avoid commercialisation, she said.

The CBSE issued the order in the wake of the   complaints  received from parents and other stakeholders that schools were  indulging in commercial activities  on the school premises or through selected vendors. Rule 19.1 (ii) of CBSE affiliation bylaws mandated that the society/trust/company registered under section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956 should ensure that the school is run as a community service and not as a business and that commercialisation does not take place in the school in any shape. Further, all the schools affiliated to the CBSE are required to follow the directions given regarding the use of NCERT/CBSE textbooks. However, the board has received reports and complaints about the schools pressuring the  children and their parents to buy other textbooks.   The board, which  has taken a serious view of the violations, has  directed the schools to desist from the unhealthy practices.