CBSE will continue with moderation but grace marks only be mentioned in mark sheets

Starting from next year onwards there will not be spiking of marks in class 10^th and 12^th CBSE boards exams , a new moderation policy is introduced which will ensure a level playing field in the evaluation process of school boards. Grace marks will be mentioned in the mark sheets separately.

An inter-board meeting on August 28, put forward some recommendations which consist of members from Gujarat, Chattisgarh, Telangana, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Manipur and ICSE Boards, is a group who deals with the issues related to moderation policy and these recommendations from the board will be sent to union HRD ministry so that each state can implement the recommendations.

“In the meeting it was decided that all the decisions taken earlier during April related to moderation are accepted by all the working group members. The recommendations are being sent to the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry. These recommendations have to be unanimously accepted by all the state boards in the country. For this purpose, MHRD has to play a proactive role,”

According to another Inter-board decision CBSE will have to supply sample questions papers to school boards which help for the unity in level of question papers.

A member of board said “The sample question papers will help states decide how many questions should be difficult, how many should be easy and what type of questions should be used. Depending on the state’s requirement they will use the sample questions to develop their own. This will bring in greater uniformity in the evaluation system”. All the members of the board agreed that spiking of marks as it is not a true reflection of a student’s performance.

Inter-board also pointed out that moderation will be practiced through which an appropriate compensation can be provided to candidates if there is a difficulty of questions and the total evaluation process. Mark sheet will also mention, if students has passed by his grace marks but will not mention how many marks awarded but state boards will have to post their moderation policy on their official websites in order to ensure transparency.

“Students who pass without grace marks will at least get some priority through this. At the same time rather than failing a student who narrowly misses the marks such students will also be passed.”  Said a group member

Even though the moderation policy allowed boards to give extra marks to students, they exploited the system to increase marks of their candidates spiking their overall percentage. And the board also mentioned the qualifying marks will be 33 out of 100, even though some states have different passing marks like 38 and 40. This move will bring a standardization for the same.

There is a clause in CBSE moderation policy which allows the board to maintain “a near parity of pass percentage of candidates in the current year vis-a-vis preceding years, subject-wise and overall”. Which can be used to increase marks which not a student’s actual reflection of performance, Goa, Tamil Nadu and Uttarakhand, use the policy to improve their pass percentage on the same time States such as Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar don’t even have a moderation policy.

According to the decision of the group, CBSE will only use one set of question in the place of three which is currently practiced. CBSE applies moderation until overall mark reach 95 in each subjects but those students who scores above 95 are not given the benefit.

Central board of secondary education had decided to stop moderation policy earlier “remove arbitrariness and inflation of marks,” but the order from Delhi high court made it applicable to this academic session, so the board decided to not take any changes in this year. Almost 18,000 schools across the country are affiliated to the CBSE.