Maharashtra govt brings back oral exams for Class 9 and 10

As per the education department, Class 9 and 10 students would have 20 mark internal assessments for languages and social sciences from this year which the department had scrapped in 2018-19.

In a relief to lakhs of students in the state, the education department has decided to re-introduce internal assessment for Class 9 and 10 from the on-going academic year (2019-20). In a government resolution released on Thursday, a detailed marking scheme, along with revisions as per the government formed committee was released for Class 9 to 12.

The government formed a 25-member committee to review its policy which recently submitted its report. (HT PHOTO)

As per the GR, Class 9 and 10 students would have 20 mark internal assessments for languages and social sciences from this year which the department had scrapped in 2018-19. As per the pattern introduced last year, students had to write 100 mark exams in these subjects which had brought down their scores with the state’s pass percentage seeing over a 10% dip. Due to the dip in results, the education department had to allow prominent junior colleges to add 5-8% seats to ensure that state board students can compete against those from the other boards. Admission data shared by the department had also revealed that of the 1,487 students who have scored 95% and above and have applied for a first year junior college (FYJC) seat, only 301 students (20%) are from the state board while the others are from CBSE, ICSE and IGCSE boards. Keeping this in mind, the government formed a 25-member committee to review its policy which recently submitted its report.

“The committee has recommended the reintroduction of internal assessments which will be brought into effect. Students would now have to take 80 mark written exams while 20 marks would be for orals,” said state education minister Ashish Shelar. While continuing internal assessments, the GR states that schools have to divide these twenty marks into two parts- 10 marks will be given for orals while the remaining 10 will be allotted to two projects of five marks each which will be given to students as per the subject.

Teachers and principals welcomed the move and said that it would help state board students. “It is a great step which would help bring back students from the state board at par with the other boards. Oral exams would also help schools gauge the overall competencies of students rather than evaluating them only on their written scores,” said Uday Nare, teacher at Hansraj Morarji Public School. With the revised textbooks being introduced in accordance with the 100 mark pattern, some said that there will again be some changes that might confuse students. “Now there will be topics in the book that would be vast but will still have a low weightage which needs to be cleared,” said a principal.

For Class 11 and 12, the government has decided to introduce Water conservation as part of environmental studies, which is currently a 50 mark subject at Class 12 boards. From 2020-21 however, the subject will be graded and students will thus have a total of 600 marks instead of 650 in the boards. As per the GR, 25% questions in the Class 12 exams will be based on the multiple choice questions which would ‘help them prepare for competitive exams that they have to appear for after Class 12.’