De-stressing students appearing in the Public examinations

As you are aware, the CBSE Board has been taking several initiatives in the recent past to de-stress the process of learning and making learning an enjoyable experience. Many initiatives have been taken at the primary level and upper primary level and the CBSE Board expects that the decisions taken will start yielding the required results in due course of time.

At the secondary and senior school level, similar efforts are required so that the emotional and psychological health of the students is taken care of. Quite unfortunately, there is an over-emphasis on the process of examinations which reflects only certain academic dimensions of the holistic profile or the learner. The CBSE oard has been urging the need for continuous and comprehensive evaluation which would reflect the spectrum of the latent talents of learners spread over the entire period of the learning process rather than a singular terminal examination and the schools have been advised to issue a certificate of CCE at the end of the ten year academic career of the student. Guidelines in this regard have already been issued to the schools, However it is seen that still many schools tend to focus on the public examinations right from the class IX. In many cases it has been observed that schools do not issue C.C.E. certificate to students who are qualifying Class X examination.

In order to prepare the students for the public examinations well in advance, some schools tend to rush through the process of teaching and learning more often emphasizing on rote learning and depriving the learners of the real joy of learning. The speed of transaction sometimes develops undesirable stress as students suffer from paucity of time to cope with such speedy transaction strategies depriving them of adequate time for assimilation and consolidation of their learning. The time for the transaction or any topic as detailed in the curriculum is either not fully available to the learners or not used by the schools for the purpose for which it is designed. The time both for learning and conceptualization is squeezed depriving the students of many valuable experiences they could gather in the process of learning. The schools need to understand that they should give the required time for transaction of the curriculum to the students as formulated in the curriculum.

As an extension of this process of time management, there is a serious attempt by certain institutions to finish the syllabi by the first term of the class X and devote the rest of the time in the second term and later, for conduct of repeated pre-CBSE Board examinations in an attempt to train the students for the public examinations. Some schools also conduct 2 to 3 other tests before the pre-CBSE Board examination. It is learnt that in some cases

such pre-CBSE Board examinations are as many as three to four before the commencement of the public examinations. The atmosphere of fear starts building up with the commencement of these examinations very often affecting the mental and psychological health of the students. In certain cases the inadequate performance of the students in these pre-CBSE Board examinations is treated as a deterrent and schools tend to hold the students from appearing in the public examinations, sometimes with a view that an adverse result might affect the image of the institution. Schools need to understand that the profile of the school is not built exclusively on the results produced by them in a public exarnination but is reflected through the quality of transaction of the curriculrm and the value based atmosphere provided to the learners to develop the qualities of the head and heart.

While the CBSE Board appreciates the need for providing the right mental ambience to the students to appear in a public examination through appropriate academic inputs, it is felt that conduct or Pre-hoard examinations more than once is absolutely unwarranted and undesirable. They do not necessarily give the required results, rather they only add to the mental stress or the learners infusing additional fear. They sometimes tend to develop self-pity, depression and a self-defeating attitude. Keeping this in view, the CBSE Board would like to direct all the affiliated schools to take up this issue quite seriously and desist from the conduct of more than one Pre-CBSE Board examination before the public examinations. It is further advised that such a pre-CBSE Board exam could be conducted before the last week of January providing adequate time for remedial teaching. It gives also some space to the learner for self-learning. The objective of this examination should be to identify those academic components in the performance or the students which need to be strengthened through academic guidance and counseling the schools would apply the same strategy for the students of class XII also who would be appearing in the Public examinations.

The CBSE Board, fervently hopes that the affiliated schools would extend their full cooperation in this endeavour. The collective effort of all the schools and the CBSE Board in reducing the stress and mental agony or the students in preparation or the public examinations will go a long way in empowering our students to emerge as more creative and innovative personalities apart from restoring their self-esteem and self-confidence.