CBSE, CISCE laying down the benchmarkStress on consistency

Extraordinary time calls for extraordinary measures to cope with the time and it is along this line that the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Council of Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) have gone ahead and announced their assessment formula to grade Class XII students. The examinations have been done away with this is where one can see the two Central Boards stepping in with their best formula to deal with the situation and in doing that they have gone ahead and submitted their formula to the Supreme Court. 30 percent weightage in the best of three subjects in Class X, weightage in the best three subjects in Class XI and 40 percent to the Class XII performance of the students. This is the model submitted by the CBSE and one here sees a sort of a premium placed on the consistency of the students  in the last three years. The performance in Class XII will obviously rest on the school assignments given during the academic year. Attendance and participation during the online classes may also come into consideration. Doing away with judging the performance of a student within three hours of sitting in the classroom. The Council of Indian School Certificate Examination, which conducts the ICSE (Class X) and ISC (Class XII) examinations has gone further and submitted that performance of a student would be graded according to his or her performance in the last six years. This means the performance of a student from Class VII to Class XII will be taken into consideration while awarding the final marks in Class XII. This is not yet final for the Supreme Court has given time till June 20 to incorporate any new suggestions that may come up. Consistency this is what the two Central Boards have stressed on and one hopes  the stress on consistency is not lost on anyone, least of all parents and guardians of the young students. One also hopes that the benchmark laid down by the two Central Boards are taken note of by the respective State Boards or Councils and study if any of the parameters set by them are feasible in their respective States or not.
In Manipur too the Council of Higher Secondary Education, Manipur (COHSEM) which conducts the Class XII exams will have to come up with a model that does justice to the merit of the young students. Here it is encouraging that the Committee constituted to assess the performance of the students of Class X and Class XII has already started discussing the inticracies of grading or awarding the students, sans an examination. First time it will be for the COHSEM and BOSEM to face such a situation and one hopes all schools affiliated to the Council and Board extend the needed co-operation and give feedbacks which would help in assessing the students as correctly as possible. If BOSEM and COHSEM decide to assess the student on the basis of how well they did in the earlier classes, then private schools may not have much of a problem given their meticulousness in keeping and maintaining records. But can all the Government schools be trusted to maintain the records of its students, say dating back to Class X and earlier ? Difficult to say but a model has to be worked out, which would also be acceptable to other universities, especially for students who would be aiming to go outside Manipur to pursue their higher education. This is about how BOSEM and COHSEM will work out the modalities of assessing the students and one wonders how schools which have specialised at the plus two level will be gearing up to attract the best students. Remember the annual freebies announced for students who score high earlier.