CBSE begins answering queries on grading system

The Central Board of Secondary Education may have put in place a grading and continuous evaluation system but the Board does not know how students will decide their streams after Class X. Joyeeta Ghosh reports.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) may have put in place a grading and continuous evaluation system but the Board does not know how students will decide their streams after Class X.

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In the absence of any regulation or guideline, schools may have to work out their own system, principals said.

“Schools can create their own criteria or use the percentile ranking system,” said Ameeta Wattal, principal of Springdales School, Pusa Road.

Wattal was speaking on the sidelines of a workshop conducted by the CBSE to train teachers and principal on the grading system.

“Each school has a limited number of seats. Since the marks get converted to grades, the teachers need to keep that in mind while evaluating a child,” Wattal said.

There is also a fear that the cutoff for choosing streams will go up after the grading system is implemented.

“Schools will have their own policies while allocating streams in class XI. Either the school has to create more seats or the cut-off grade has to be higher,” said Rita Kapur, principal of DPS, Ghaziabad.

The workshop that began in the capital on Tuesday is the first in a series to be held all over the country.

Both teachers and principals were confused on how to grade a student in co-scholastic areas which include thinking and emotional skills, attitude towards teachers, schoolmates, and public property.

“The teachers will be given some descriptive indicators to judge them,” said Wattal.

However, how much importance the co-scholastic areas will have in assessing a child's performance while allocating him /her a stream is questionable.

“Though co-scholastic areas will be taken into account allocating of streams in class XI will be primarily based on scholastics,” said Kapur

The CBSE will address queries regarding the grading system that emerged during the workshop and the answers will be posted on its website www.weforccegooglegroup.com