According to sources, from next year, Class X and XII board examinations conducted by Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will be held in February instead of March to provide ample time for “error-free evaluation”.
This year the exams were conducted from March 1 to April 20. Unlike the current process the CBSE is planning to complete the exams within a month rather than dragging the process over 45 days.
CBSE Chairman R K Chaturvedi stated that this would also advance the date of declaration of results, which generally come around the third or fourth week of May. As quoted by Times of India, Chaturvedi told TOI, “The examinations should start around February 15 and we are also planning to complete them within a month”.
The board believes that the early results will facilitate the CBSE students for a speedy undergraduate admission process. “Otherwise it has been a neck-band affair”, said the chairperson.
The board’s plan to advance the examinations is a part of the reforms in the evaluation process, which has come under the scanner due to glaring errors in the practice.
“By April, vacation begins and there is a lack of experienced teachers. Therefore, advancing evaluation to mid-March will ensure that we have the best teachers evaluating the answer scripts. Otherwise, during vacation, schools offer us only temporary, ad-hoc and newly-appointed teachers for the evaluation exercise as experienced teachers don’t oblige,” said Chaturvedi.
According to the CBSE chairman, this will also offer the board some breathing space to work on the results and make them error-free. Each year around 50,000 teachers are engaged in the evaluation process across 2,000 centres. Most of the centres are at Kendriya Vidyalayas.
“Just like teacher’s training, we are planning two evaluator’s training sessions each year starting from December 2017,” said Chaturvedi.
On re-evaluation, Chaturvedi said that the board decided to discontinue the practice since only very meagre students apply for re-evaluation. He also cited summer vacation as another reason, claiming that it becomes difficult to get expert teachers in that period and also stalls the next process of admissions, disturbing the annual calendar in the process.