CBSE to roll out grading system from October

To Check Implementation In Schools

Anahita Mukherji | TNN

Mumbai: With the CBSE board set to kick-start its ambitious new system of continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) in Class IX from next month—the first step in moving away from an exam-based system to one focussed on learning—there are apprehensions over just how well individual schools will implement the system.

But here’s a note of caution for any school that intends to cheat on the CCE. In a letter on September 20 to all CBSE school principals, board chairperson Vineet Joshi wrote that there will be a random verification of the assessment procedures carried out by schools. This verification will be carried out by board officials as well as nominees appointed by the board.

There will be wide-scale teacher-training programmes across India for all CBSE schools starting next month. The training will be compulsory for all school principals. Schools will also have to send two teachers each for the training, the letter said. The CBSE has asked its teachers to assess students using unconventional methods such as quizzes and conversations through “Formative Assessment’’. This focusses on continuously monitoring students in a non-threatening and supportive environment. The system calls for an active involvement of students. The CBSE Class X board exam will be compulsory in 2010 but, from the following year, it will be optional.

IIT profs’ hunger strike on 24th
Kolkata/Ahmedabad: Around 1,500 faculty members, including professors at the IITs across the country, will go on a hunger strike on Thursday (Sept 24) over “anomalies’’ in the pay structure but there will be no disruption in classes. The decision putting the faculty on a collision course with the government was taken at a meeting of its federation at IITKharagpur. The structure put restrictions on promotions and lacked performance-based incentives, the federation said. The action by the IITs came even as the IIM-Ahmedabad board decided to meet on September 25 to deal with the situation arising out the faculty members rejecting the the HRD ministry’s latest order on pay structure. AGENCIES

CBSE plans independent body to grade its schools

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: The CBSE board is all set to help you out. The board is planning to set up its own national accreditation body to grade CBSE schools across the country. The body will be an independent one and will consist of experts in the field of education.

Those present at a recent CBSE board meeting say there were plans to grade schools on various parameters, and not just academics alone. “The board may not even give schools one single overall rating. Instead, schools may be get separate grades for the various parameters, like sports,’’say board sources.

The board is also mulling over a proposal on new schools, whereby all schools wh i ch have recently started will have to run for three years and get themselves accredited before they get CBSE affiliation. Board officials, though, say there is no clear time frame for setting up this accreditation body.

Mumbai parents have given the move a thumbs up. Commenting on CBSE’s plan to give accreditation to schools, parent Shaira Shaikh says “This is a fantastic idea. It will certainly help us choose appropriate schools for our children. I had a tough time when it came to searching for schools for my eightyear-old son. If CBSE implements this policy by next year, it will be easier to zero in on a school for my daughter.’’

The Maharashtra government too had been weighing a proposal to grade its schools. A parent of a student in a state board school suggested a common accreditation system for schools across the country.

Some schools in Mumbai had at one time even sought ISO certification as a measure of quality.

HASSLE-FREE EXAM

New system will de-stress students

Manash Pratim Gohain | TNN

New Delhi: Now that there’s clarity over the Board exams being made optional from 2010-11 academic year, the focus has shifted on ways of evaluating students and ensuring that their learning doesn’t stop in the absence of an annual examination towards the end of Class X. A new system—Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE)—was approved on Monday by high-powered Central Advisory Board of Education, to be implemented in all CBSE schools.

Under this system, students will be evaluated through formative and summative assessments throughout the academic year that will be divided into two terms. While formative assessment includes continuous evaluation throughout the year, summative assessment will require students to appear for exams at the end of each term (for details see graphic on page 1). Instead of marks, students will now be evaluated on a 9-point grading system–A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, C1, C2, C3 and D. Students will also get grades for their co-scholastic and learning skills as well, for which the modalities are under consideration. These grades would also be reflected in the report card.

CBSE chairman Vineet Joshi said, “Apart from de-stressing students, the newsystem would ensure that standards don’t fall. It would also encourage students to showcase their creative skills.’’ However, he said option of grade system will be available only to students who continue in the same school in class XI.

The idea behind the grading and the CCE system is to infuse a continuous learning process and understand that whatever he/she does like homework, classwork or the projects are important. However, with most schools already having adopted a system of weekly exams, apprehensions are being raised over the efficacy of CCE in bringing down the stress levels of students. Principal of Springdales, Pusa Road, Ameeta Mulla Wattal, said the CCE should not degenerate into a series of weekly tests. “There should be no space for evaluation through weekly tests in CCE. Evaluation should be done through regular activities a student does like home and class works, assignments and projects.’’

HOW CBSE’S GRADING SYSTEM WILL WORK

THE NEW ORDER

With board exams being made optional from the academic year 2010-11, a new system of evaluation—Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE)—based on grades has been approved. It comprises formative and summative assessment of the student to be done over two terms—first and second— during the year-long academic calendar

Formative Assessment To evaluate and grade class work, homework, assignment and project work

1 There will be two evaluations each in the first and second terms

2 Each evaluation will carry 10 marks apiece

Summative Assessment Based on the term-end examination

1 There will be one term-end exam for each term

2 The first term-end exam will carry 20 marks

3 The second term-end exam will carry 40 marks

EVALUATION
Students of class IX and X will be evaluated on a 9-point grading system. Each grade, given on the basis of both formative and summative assessments, will correspond to a range of marks as indicated below:

It's official, CBSE Class 10 exams become optional

New Delhi, Aug 31

From the current academic year, the tens of thousands of students studying in Class 10 need not burn the midnight oil or get stressed over the board exams -- the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) class 10 examination has been made optional.

Making this announcement here late Monday evening, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters: "The CBSE Class 10 exams are optional from the 2009-10 academic year."

“I have said this earlier too," Sibal said after the 56th meeting of the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) here, attended by education ministers and officials from states.

He added that the examination would give way to a grading system and students would be evaluated throughout the year.

HRD ministry officials believe this move would help relieve the stress on thousands of students and their families.

Officials said all schools, which have Class 11 and 12, need not conduct the Class 10 exams, but schools with classes up to standard 10 may conduct the board examination.

Under the grading system, students would be given grades like A+, A, B, C, D and E.

Sibal said many state governments were happy about the new system, but they need to evolve a consensus in their respective state assemblies to implement it in their secondary education boards.

The grading system is for the CBSE now and not for the state boards, Sibal said

CBSE tries to make schoolbags lighter

Anahita Mukherji | TNN

Mumbai: Here’s a piece of good news for children groaning under the weight of huge schoolbags. CBSE chairman Vineet Joshi has issued a circular to the board’s schools across the country, asking them to implement a slew of measures in order to lighten the bags, especially in the primary section.

From ensuring that unnecessary textbooks are not prescribed by schools to re-designing the timetable so that soft skills are interspersed with academic subjects, the board has prescribed a slew of solutions to heavy schoolbags.

According to the CBSE circular, the number of prescribed textbooks for a particular class should not exceed the number prescribed by the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) for that class. The circular adds that “schools should ensure strict compliance with the number of books prescribed so that students and parents are not burdened academically or financially’’.

The board has also asked schools to maintain the bags of children up to Std II in the institute itself and suggested the setting up a class library, which can lend texts to students who have forgotten their books at home.

The circular goes on to discuss a more modern pedagogy of education in order to lighten schoolbags. These include integrating soft skills with “main course teaching’’, using interesting alternatives to homework and adopting a continuous as well as comprehensive method of evaluation.

“There’s a lot that needs to be done when it comes to reducing the load children carry to school. Several private schools insist on a number of unnecessary books. When I recently went to a book shop and asked for an NCERT text, I was immediately offered a whole range of workbooks, which were double the price of the textbook,’’ said Anita Rampal, Delhi University professor in the department of education and chairperson of the NCERT’s primary textbook development committee.

Rampal said though the NCERT policy clearly stated that only languages and math should be taught in Std I and II, several CBSE schools—both private as well as Kendriya Vidyalayas—often insisted on teaching environmental science in these classes and even prescribe textbooks for the same. “This is against the NCERT policy,’’ she adds.

Schools have welcomed the move to lighten schoolbags. “They need to implement the policy more effectively and come up with alternatives to textbooks—such as worksheets and creative activities—in the classroom,’’ said Dr K B Kushal, director of the DAV group of schools.

Heavy schoolbags have been a concern for a long time,’’ said Avnita Bir, principal of RN Podar School in Santa Cruz. Bir, however, pointed out that it wasn’t just the content of a schoolbag that was to blame. “The shape of schoolbags that are currently used causes an imbalance in the distribution of weight,’’ she added. Students whom TOI spoke to said the CBSE move was a step in the right direction.

anahita.mukherji@timesgroup.com