SCERT evaluation process: 673 students fail to appear for Punjabi, English exam

In Class 8, out of 19,261 students, around 350 students were not present for the English examination. In 2018, as many as 342 students of Class 8 had failed to appear for the examination.

As many as 673 students of Classes 5 and 8 failed to appear for the Punjabi and English examination under the evaluation process conducted by the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), in the district on Tuesday.

The district education officials said that majority of the students who failed to appear for the examination belong to migrant families from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and visit their native places around this time. (PTI)

In Class 5, out of 18,491 students, as many as 18,168 students appeared for the Punjabi examination. Out of these 324 students—172 boys and 151 girls did not appear for the examination. Last year, 195 students of Class 5 had not appeared in the Punjabi examination.

In Class 8, out of 19,261 students, around 350 students were not present for the English examination. In 2018, as many as 342 students of Class 8 had failed to appear for the examination.

The Class 5 examination was conducted at 495 centres between 9:30 am to 11:30 am. The Class 8 examination took place at 470 centres between 1pm to 4pm. After the examination, mid-day meal was served to students in their respective schools.

Deputy district education officer, elementary, Kuldeep Singh inspected three centres—Government Primary School, Jawahar Nagar (boys), Government Primary School, Ambedkar Nagar and Government Primary School, Ishwar Nagar.

The district education officials said that majority of the students who failed to appear for the examination belong to migrant families from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and visit their native places around this time.

Kamalpreet Kaur, a Class 5 teacher at Government Primary school, Dugri, Ludhiana, said, “In our school, all the students of Class 5 appeared in the examination and found the question paper easy. I motivated the students to appear in all the five exams and give their best.”

A Class 5 student, Gunmeet Kaur, who took the examination at Government Primary School, Jawahar Nagar, said, “The paper was simple and I was able to complete it in two hours. I will score above 80% marks in the examination.”

After a gap of eight years, the Punjab education department has decided to conduct the evaluation process for Class 5 and 8. If a student is not able to score above 33% in the March evaluation process and fails in the re-examination, he/she could be held back in the same class from this session. In case the child is not able to pass in the re-examination, the school head can hold back the child in Class 5 and 8. However, no child will be expelled from school till the completion of elementary education.

Since 2014, the schools were holding the evaluation process for Classes 5 and 8 and students were given grades between ‘A’ (more than 80%) and ‘E’ (less than 33%). Students were not held back even if they got an ‘E’ grade and were “identified for remedial coaching and extra attention”.

Moreover, only the grades (and not marks) are revealed to the students and parents.