Hyderabad: The increase in the number of complaints by students regarding the disparity in scores awarded by different boards led to the constitution of an inter-board committee to ensure that all students are given equal opportunities. The committee has prepared a list of recommendations to be submitted to the ministry of human resource development.
Anjali Razdan, the vice-chairperson of the CBSE Schools’ Association, says, “To ensure equality among all boards, there should be parity in the assessment and scoring patterns. The set of questions cannot be too varied.”
The committee has decided to circulate sample question papers of the CBSE to all other boards, to give them an idea about the type of questions included and their level of difficulty. State boards are expected to develop their own question papers along the similar lines.
So far, whenever complaints regarding the difficulty of a particular set of question papers have been received, moderation marks have been awarded to students. However, the committee has recommended the discontinuation of this practice. The system of awarding grace marks to students who are just a few marks short of the cut-off for pass grade will continue to be implemented. The grace marks will have to be mentioned separately on their answer scripts.
Lakshmi Rao, a member of the Save the Education Society, says, “We often hear issues regarding state boards trying to increase their overall pass percentage. This step will ensure that there is standardisation among all the boards with the implementation of the same cut-off for passing. The question paper models will also be the same.”
This step is aimed at curbing unfair practices used to inflate student scores which produce results that not actually reflect the students’ performance.
“What a school does internally does not affect the board unless it has to do with the board exams. If students’ marks are increased or tampered with, students will ultimately lose faith in the board,” says Ms Razdan.
