New exam pattern in CBSE schools from April

1.1977286-3262318 — An examination under way at the Indian High School in Dubai. The new system will impact thousands of students studying in 65 CBSE schools in the UAE. Picture for illustrative purposes. Image Credit: A.K Kallouche/Gulf News Archives

Dubai: India’s Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is changing the examination pattern for grade six to 10 students from the next academic year, which will begin in April in the UAE.

The board has discontinued the formative and summative assessment pattern for all these grades and it will now be compulsory for grade 10 students to take board examination with cumulative portions for the entire year.

The CBSE’s decision to revert to its old assessment scheme will be implemented from the academic year 2017-2018 starting here in April. This will impact the pattern of learning and assessment in majority of the Indian schools in the UAE that follow the CBSE curriculum.

The new system will impact thousands of students studying in 65 CBSE schools in the UAE.

Ashok Kumar, CEO of the Indian High School Dubai, who is also a member of the Council of　CBSE　Affiliated Schools in the　Gulf countries, explained how the new system will be implemented. According to him, under the continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) pattern of assessment implemented since 2009, the academic year had two semesters each ending with a summative assessment of learning known as SA 1 and SA 2. Each of these had a weightage of 30 per cent. The remaining 40 per cent weightage was for the four formative assessments for learning, known as FA 1 to FA 4, each having a weightage of 10 per cent.

Each FA was recommended to have written and non-written components including individual and group works.

Also, schools could opt for school-conducted or board-conducted assessment for the summative assessment two exams in grade 10.

“However there was no mention in the Certificate whether the student followed scheme 1 or scheme 2 [school or board –conducted exam]. The remaining assessment, which had 70 per cent weightage for the annual performance, was conducted and reported by schools under both schemes,” Kumar told Gulf News on Sunday.

In the new assessment pattern, 80 per cent weightage is given to the board examination which covers 100 per cent syllabus of grade 10.

That means students have to revise the entire portion once again for the final exam. The marks of the term exams will no longer be calculated for the final result.

Kumar said students, who were tested on the content for a semester alone, may take some time to adapt to the new system.

“That means, students have to work hard for their final examination which has a weightage of 80 per cent and covers the 100 per cent syllabus for the year and school’s internal assessment will have a weightage of only 20 per cent, unlike the 70 per cent (4 FAs and SA1) in the past.”

A circular issued by the board said: “For the purpose of uniformity in classes VI to IX may replicate the same assessment model.”

Under the CCE system, he said, students used to score well in FAs since it was the joint responsibility of the teacher and the student to develop the criteria for assessment. Students also had a voice and choice in selecting the activity suiting their preferred learning style and interest and was itself facilitating personalization and differentiation.

“Teachers used to select these activities from a wide range of age-appropriate activities recommended by the board to cater to development of 21st century skills, most of which cannot be assessed though a pen on paper test.”

“Now the schools should carefully plan for strategies in personalised learning and differentiated instruction.”

With the change in the weightage for development of skills, Kumar said schools should ensure that the written examination should have a judicious balance between assessment of content knowledge and understanding and application of the skills and teachers should integrate these in the teaching learning strategies.