CBSE to form panel to check Class 12 marks complaints

In an affidavit filed through its counsel Rupesh Kumar, CBSE clarified that the offline exams for such candidates will be held between August 15 and September 15, subject to the easing of the Covid-19 situation.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will set up a committee to redress grievances of Class 12 students over the marks awarded under the tabulation scheme, and also give them the option to sit for an offline exam to improve their scores, the board told the Supreme Court on Sunday.

CBSE cancelled class 12 exams on June 1. (HT File Photo)

In an affidavit filed through its counsel Rupesh Kumar, CBSE clarified that the offline exams for such candidates will be held between August 15 and September 15, subject to the easing of the Covid-19 situation.

A bench of justices A M Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari will take up the affidavit on Tuesday as some petitions that have challenged the tabulation scheme of CBSE and Council for Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) could not be listed on Monday.

Last week, the two boards submitted their tabulation formulae in court. CBSE has adopted a 30:30:40 formula to evaluate Class 12 students, where 30% weightage will be given each to the Class 10 and 11 results and 40% will be on the results of pre-boards or internal assessments held in Class 12. CISCE’s assessment scheme differs from CBSE’s as it judges students mostly on their performance in Class 11 and 12.

But both these schemes were found wanting on two fronts — lack of a proper dispute resolution mechanism, and clear dates for holding optional exams.

CISCE informed the court that it would want to hold the optional exams before September 1. As regards grievance redressal, it said the scheme allows candidates to submit complaints to their respective schools, which would forward them to the board within a week.

The CBSE also stated in its affidavit that all disputes regarding computation of results will be referred to a committee formed by the board. This has been made part of the assessment scheme as well. In addition, the CBSE scheme provides that any candidate who wishes to appear in the optional offline examination will have the facility of registering online. As and when conditions are conducive, the board will hold physical examination limited to the main subject papers. The marks obtained in this examination will be treated as final.

But parents aren’t happy. A plea filed by a parents’ association in Uttar Pradesh has asked for the holding of offline examinations and criticised the tabulation schemes of both the boards. The parents have said that there is a scope of manipulation in CBSE’s scheme as it is left to a result committee in every school to tabulate marks and send them to the board.

The court has also listed for Tuesday an application filed by three private/compartment candidates who have demanded an assessment scheme like that for regular students. CBSE has said that examinations for such candidates will be held under the assessment policy for the academic year 2019-20 that it had framed last year.

These candidates coming from Odisha, Tripura and Delhi have claimed to have the support of 1,149 Class 10 and 12 compartment/private candidates across the country.

The same bench will also hear another petition challenging the decision of various state boards to hold Class XII examinations.