The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has decided to go soft on spelling mistakes and will no longer deduct marks for spelling mistakes in school kids' copies. The Board was to issue a set of guidelines this year to examiners specifying areas where they should ignore spelling errors. CBSE X and XII examinees will from now be penalised for spelling goof-ups only in essays, letters or specific English-language tests.

Even if a student writes horror as 'horor' in a literature exam or his comprehension passage has a couple of word jumbles, marks won't be deducted. The same applies to science and liberal arts.

The Boards aim: To find out if a child is aware of a certain event, if he understands an issue. A history exam shouldn't be treated on a par with a spelling test.

Spelling and dictation classes are passe and the focus is on developing communication skills. "It is, therefore, wrong to penalise kids for spelling goof-ups, if they have the right answers," says Pavnesh Kumar, a Board official.