Another blow by Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to the upcoming and current slot of class 12 is the removal of Marks Moderation Policy. Already in a thunderstorm of controversies, CBSE is yet again creating another situation for the next batch of students.
The move is led forward in order to keep in check the percentage of students scoring more than 95% marks. But, even though CBSE is withdrawing from the policy, with most state boards continuing to follow grace marks policy, there won’t be much success expected from the action. It is estimated that at least this year, with the move in action, state board students will have an upper hand than CBSE students.
The spiking marks of students in CBSE board examination resulted in abnormally high cut-offs for major subjects like history, mathematics in reputed colleges like Delhi University.
Marks Moderation Policy is basically giving out grace marks to those students who are falling short of a few marks to clear the examination. It also gives out the provision to give grace marks to students for extra difficult questions in the examination or for any question with errors.
When received enough complaints over the difficulty level of the questions in any subject, CBSE would set a panel to decide what grace marks should be provided to each student under this provision.
The committee is scheduled to meet on June 29 to take this issue up.
According to the clause, the CBSE can maintain “a near parity of pass percentage of candidates in the current year vis-à-vis preceding years, subject-wise and overall”, according to the Hindustan Times.
Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Saturday that generous marks distribution of marks will soon stop. “I will stop bad practices in the field of education,” he added.
“Students have to work hard to earn marks. It isn’t possible that every scores 100 out of 100 in all subjects. There should be some restrictions while awarding marks.”
“It will put CBSE students in a disadvantageous position. Complete parity should be maintained amongst all boards, including state boards,” said a central board official.
The issue is currently pending the high court and is scheduled to be taken up by the governing body.