Hyderabad: The CBSE has done an about-turn. The Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) that it had introduced two years back has now been taken off. Board exams have become ma-ndatory. The CCE’s Formative Assessments’ (FA-1 to 4) and Summative Assessments (SA-1 and 2) will now be replaced by unit tests, quarterly, half-yearly, pre final and finals.
The portion to be studied by the students for the annual exam would be different. Instead of the last four months’ of study propagated by CCE, the annual exam would cover all the lessons taught during the year.
The CCE system was conceived when there were widespread cases of student depression because of their failure to do well in exams. A holistic approach was factored in the syllabus and assessed mainly by the school with partial assessment by the board 70-30 to be precise.
The system did not take off the way it was planned. Project work was manipulated, with students often being aided by a parent or an elder sibling. Internet was a primary source of information for the project, but the idea was to use the information and create fresh analyticals, Rarely did the students or teachers take it to that next level. More often than not, it was a cut-paste job of the content available on the net.
Mr S. Shankara Chary, Principal of Indus Universal School (IUS) in Sainikpuri said, “CCE was introduced to curb the increasing cases of depression and suicides. But students became relaxed. The CBSE received feedback from stakeholders that internal test results were being manipulated with malpratices at the internal level.”
Another important feature was that the report card only showed grades. A, B, C or D. No ranks and not the abominable word ‘Fail’.
Said Mr Chary, “Students became habituated to write tests in small portions. This however made it difficult for them to write the board exams of class 10 and 12 which are conducted at the end of the year. Descri-ptive writing abilities were also reduced.”
Ms D. Padmavati, the headmistress for Hyderabad Public School, who was for the CCE till the last year, said: “The present batch of class students are used to giving their examination in smaller portions. But from now on, they will have a tough time managing the entire year’s syllabus at once.”
Schools are readying parents to face the new challenges that are bound to be thrown up by this new system. Said Ms Padmavati, “We have started orientation sessions for parents to appraise them about the new system so that they will be ready to face the new challenges.'”
According to Indus Universal School principal, the new pattern would be beneficial for the students in the long run. “The only thing which is not convincing is the use of word ‘Fail’ in the report cards,” he said.
Students will show least interest in doing projects
With CCE relegated to the bin, students will no longer be enthused about doing project work. Projects carry only five per cent of the total mar-ks attributed to a subject, and is split up in several categories.
Said a senior teacher, “Students will finish the tasks only when marks are given to them. But classroom debates, public speaking, and group discussions are essential skills one needs to develop during schooling.”
Said another teacher, “Students learn to gather information from various sources using different methods like personal visits, internet, interviews and interacting with people. It teaches students to compile and display data and learn to use variety of modes like graphical representation, pictorial, tabular formats etc.”
Mr Narsimha Reddy, Hyderabad Public School Principal, Ramanthpur, said, “Activities like classroom debates, public speaking, gro-up discussions are essential skills one requires to develop during schooling and along with them they will develop a lot of soft skills as well. But now with the new system, co-scholastic activities, art education, health and physical and discipline are assessed on five-point scale which is very less.”
“Like salary increments and perks motivate a person to work more effectively, students will finish the tasks when only marks are given to them,” he said.
