Moderation plan for class 10 exam

Students worried that a strict school may place them at a disadvantage in the March class 10 examinations can relax — the Central Board of Secondary Education plans to moderate scores across schools to ensure a level playing field.

Students worried that a strict school may place them at a disadvantage in the March class 10 examinations can relax — the Central Board of Secondary Education plans to moderate scores across schools to ensure a level playing field.

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Bombarded with questions from parents and students worried that their class 10 scores would suffer because their school is “stricter” in evaluation than others, the CBSE is working on a moderation scheme, Board sources confirmed.

The current batch of class 10 in CBSE-affiliated schools is the first set of students who have the option of not taking the Board-conducted examination in March. Instead, they can take the corresponding examination conducted their own school.

The CBSE will vet all question papers used by schools and will provide answers and marking schemes. But the actual evaluation in school-conducted class 10 examinations will be done by teachers of the particular school.

This has led to concerns that teachers in some schools may try to evaluate their students leniently to ensure that their students emerge with higher class 10 scores — and grades — than counterparts in other schools.

Schools use the class 10 performance of their students to market themselves to parents and students.

“The apprehensions are natural, in a sense, given the novelty of the entire process. But we will address these concerns more than adequately,” a CBSE official said.

The proposed moderation scheme will look at the spread of marks of all students in a school, sources said. But the moderation scheme may also be accompanied by random verification of evaluation procedures followed by different schools, the sources said.

“We will seek answer scripts on a random basis from different schools and will evaluate them independently to verify that the school is not violating the marking scheme we provide, and is not being lenient to its students,” an official said.