CBSE to begin new evaluation system

The Central Board of Secondary Education will be introducing an evaluation system in certain subjects and a series of new curricula in various levels from the next academic year, said Ashok Ganguly, Chairman of the CBSE, yesterday.

Ganguly was addressing a press conference on the eve of the 15th Annual Conference of CBSE-affiliated schools in the Gulf which will be held today at the Taj Palace Hotel, Dubai.

"We are now introducing two important things from the next academic session. One is the Life Skill Education and the other is the Integration of Disaster Management education. You all are aware that there is a lot of stress among students as we are giving too much importance to examination marks. This has brought a lot of competition into the school education sector," he said.

"We believe that emphasis should be placed on excellence over competitiveness. We have got feedback that students are finding it difficult to cope with the stress, which is related to examination and career option and also on how to regulate one's life. We came up with the three 'R' theory which is regulation, relaxation and respiration."

Ganguly added: "We want to tell the students that they might not get the right marks in the examination or they might not get the right college admission or even the right career option but still they can have a life, which is meaningful."

That's where the Life Skill Education comes in. It will be implemented from class six in the next academic session and then move gradually to other classes.

"It will become part of our curriculum and part of our co-scholastic activities. So obviously it will be part of internal and external evaluation. If anything is not made a part of evaluation, there is every likelihood that the student and the school will not take the activity seriously. We will soon come out with the textual material and CD rom so that teachers must know that while delivering geography and history how to make Life Skill Education part of the activity," he said.

"Under the Disaster Management Education, we will be talking of natural and man-made disasters. Topics like biological warfare, nuclear holocaust, earthquakes, etc. Our next generation should be aware how to protect themselves under such conditions and how to protect others. We are now going to implement this as part of an integrated approach in the Social Science Curriculum in class eight, class nine and class 10."

The Social Science Curriculum has been reduced to 40 per cent. Instead of four books, the now use one book. "If we integrate the Disaster Management, we will be adding 10 per cent of the content to the Social Science curriculum as a frontline approach. There will be evaluation both internal and external as it will involve a lot of project activity," he said.

The support and textual material for schools are prepared by CBSE.

"We are also going to strengthen the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation. You know that every class- 10 passing student is provided with a board certificate besides their school certificate. We will take it a bit further. We are planning to integrate a certain component of internal evaluation with that of external evaluation," he said.

"Here I am talking for the secondary level. Right now, we are doing this exercise only in the science subject where 25 per cent of the practical component is internally evaluated and 75 per cent is from the external examination. We thought why not do it with other subjects? This will be implemented from the next academic session in social science curriculum. It will not be subjective. The entire thing will be dealt in an objective manner."

Ganguly added that they are re-designing the IT curriculum in the plus-2 level.

"We are introducing three elective subjects, which are computer science, informative practices and the web and multimedia technology. The students will have the flexibility of having single or double subjects combination," he said.

"The mathematics laboratory is another concern as we are very much concerned of the mathematics results. We are designing a teachers resource manual to develop their competence. The guidelines are already ready and will be brought out in March. It will be handed over to all CBSE school. Students will be given exposure from class 5."

At plus-2 level, they are planning to have a "frontline approach" in two other subjects in sociology and chemistry, he said.

"By frontline approach, we mean 10 per cent of the latest knowledge input are given to the student and simultaneously deleting the 10 per cent, which is obsolete. We have already used this concept in biology, economic, physics and in business studies. Now we are going to have it in sociology and chemistry," he said.

"We will have an extra examiner to evaluate the Social Science subjects to reduce the margin of error."

According to Ganguly, more than 13,000 students from the Gulf will be appearing for the class 10 and class 12 examination.

"There has been an increase of about nine per cent enrolment in class 10 and about three to four per cent in class 12. We have made all the arrangements to conduct examinations for the students of Kuwait in terms of emergency," he said.

"There are about 957 in class 10 and 675 in class 12. We have made all alternative arrangements in place of emergency situations to conduct examinations as per the wishes of the students and parents. These arrangements are made in Dubai and other emirates and also in India."