SSC exams cancelled: Real test for Maharashtra board now

In the absence of a standardised mechanism to assess the year-round performance of state board students, the Maharashtra government’s decision to cancel the senior secondary certificate (SSC) Class 10 exams has thrown up challenges for the state education department

In the absence of a standardised mechanism to assess the year-round performance of state board students, the Maharashtra government’s decision to cancel the senior secondary certificate (SSC) Class 10 exams has thrown up challenges for the state education department.

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The cancellations

On April 15, CBSE cancelled Class 10 exams and postponed Class 12 exams across the country. Students of Class 10 will be marked on the basis of objective criteria to be developed by the board. The criteria for marking students are yet to be declared. On April 12, the state had postponed HSC exams to the end of May and SSC exams to June, following which the state had written to CBSE and ICSE officials requesting postponement of board exams. However, following CBSE’s decision and a similar decision from ICSE, IGCSE and IB, there was growing pressure from students and parents to cancel exams to ensure equivalence across boards, key at the time of admissions to colleges. On Tuesday, Class 10 exams were cancelled by the state government.

The challenges

While state education minister Varsha Gaikwad announced that students of Class 10 will be marked on the basis of internal assessments, it seems like a herculean task for a board with over 17 lakh students across different geographical and social backgrounds appearing for the exams every year. Schools said while they were awaiting guidelines, they were unsure about the efficacy of internal assessments as they were conducted at the school level and their format and frequency varied in each school.

Jagdish Indalkar, principal, KVK School, Ghatkopar, said while the school has conducted prelim exams, some students did not write them. “Some students have not submitted any of the assignments we had asked them to and did not even appear for the exams. Now, if internal assessments have to be considered, we will have to give another chance to such students. Besides, students wrote their prelims only for practice and did not know that these marks are likely to be considered in the future. Hence, we cannot say that these marks indicate the real potential of a child,” he added.

Schools said in the absence of government guidelines on internal assessments throughout the year, they continued conducting short tests, prelims etc. as per their understanding and requirement. “Some conducted a single prelim, while others took three to four exams. Those who could afford conducted exams using high-end proctoring software, while those who could not, used Google forms, email and other such means. Where is the consistency? How can two students from two different schools who are evaluated on completely different criteria compete for a college seat with their marks? This will be unfair,” said a teacher from a school in the city’s eastern suburbs.

How others do it

The heads of CBSE and ICSE boards said both the boards have a process for internal assessments and have data for it. “We have a meeting with the board in a few days and will wait for instructions to send data. We have conducted year-round assessments,” said an ICSE board principal.

CBSE, too, has four-five assessments throughout the year and schools have sent the data to the board on Tuesday.

Vasant Kalpande, former chairperson of the state board, said we need to understand the differences between students of the state board and those from other boards. “These schools have a majority of students from middle- and high-income groups and many schools are in towns and cities with basic online infrastructure already in place. For the state board, there are many challenges because there is the rural-urban gap and then a large number of students are also first-generation learners. Thus, the decision-making process here is likely to be more complex,” he added.

While a majority of schools in the state did not conduct any internal assessments for Class 10, some schools in parts of the state where schools had reopened for a few months before the second wave, physical exams were conducted for Class 9 and 10. This has raised concerns over equivalence of marks as some students wrote physical exams while others did not.

“We held our practice exams for students and almost all attended. We prepared them for 2-3 months and then took exams. Hence it was a very well-planned exercise here,” said Balu Bhoyar, principal, Karamveer Vidyalaya in Chandrapur.

The state education department allowed schools in the state to reopen for Classes 9 to 12 from November 23, 2020 and for Classes 5 to 8 from January 27, 2021. Many schools closed in March and April owing to the rising Covid-19 cases.

On Tuesday, state education minister Varsha Gaikwad held a meeting with experts and officials of the education department. “Several ideas and possibilities were discussed and explored. We are trying to get feedback on them from various stakeholders and experts,” said a senior educationist who was present at the meeting.