60% students opt out of board exam burden

Updated on: Thursday, June 02, 2011

Nearly 60% of the students from Mumbai’s CBSE schools opted for the school-based assessment and principals believe that in the long run, only a handful of students will appear for the board examination. Overall, only 35% of students from the Chennai region (which includes Maharashtra and nine other states and union territories) opted out of the board examinations this year, but it was a different story in Mumbai.

At Apeejay School in Nerul, out of a batch of 187 students, only 37 appeared for the board examination this year. “The final output is the same as students who opted for board exams as well as those with the school-based assessments got the same report card. Nowhere in the report card does it show the difference,” said Rakesh Joshi, principal of Appejay School, Nerul. He added that many of his students who had opted for the board exam this year were regretting their decision. “This was the first time such an option was tested and now that students know there is no difference in the report card, only those who want to apply to junior colleges will appear for the board exams next year,” he added.

A similar pattern was noticed in other top city schools. At Kendriya Vidyalaya-IIT Powai, of the total 181 students, only 18 opted for the board examinations. At Rajhans Vidyalaya in Andheri, over 60% students opted for school-based assessments. “Either way, 60% marks for every student are submitted by the school and the board examination accounts for only the remaining 40 per cent. So 60% of the evaluation even for a student who appears for the board examination will be done by the school,” said Deepshikha Srivastava, principal of Rajhans Vidyalaya.

In most city schools this year, the top scorer turned out to be the one who had opted for the school-based assessment. However, principals added that this had nothing to do with the examination being conducted in schools. “Even though we conducted the examination in our school, the actual evaluation was done by the board. Even the results come from the board,” said P C Chhabra, principal of Delhi Public School, Navi Mumbai.
Mamta Bhattacharyya, principal of Kendriya Vidyalaya 2, Colaba, said that 25% of the students from her school opted for board exams this year but next year’s batch are sure of avoiding that tension and choosing school-based assessment instead.

While most city school students had the option to not appear for board examinations this year, a handful could not do so. For instance, DAV School in Kharghar only operates till class X, so its students had no other option but to appear for the board examinations. “Many of our students wanted to opt for school-based assessment, but we had no option. We had applied for the plus-two (+2) status, but the permission got delayed,” said principal Seema Maindiratta. She also added that despite the fact that all the students gave the board exam, half of the candidates from the school scored above 90 per cent.

SUCCESS IN GRADES

Report card in 2011 had these parameters:

PART I - SCHOLASTIC AREAS

a) Academic performance in English, Sanskrit, mathematics, social science and science

b) Work experience, art education, physical and health education

PART 2 - CO-SCHOLASTIC AREAS

a) Life skills – thinking skills, social skills, emotional skills (evaluated in grades)

b) Attitude and values towards teachers, school mates, school programmes, environment and value system

PART 3 - CO-SCHOLASTIC AREAS

a) Co-scholastic activities literary and creative, scientific and ICT (in grades)

b) Physical and health education, sports, first aid

60% students opt out of board exam burden

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