CCE: A Change that is harder to Accept
Long ago in 1964, Kothari Commission was passed resulting into the origin of CBSE. Since then we were following the same methods of studies and marking in schools. Our education system is very old, say more than 100 years old. This K-12(Kindergarten + 12 Standards) system was introduced by Britishers to create clerks for their own purpose and the sad thing is that we are still following that system without any major changes.
Now Govt. of India has changed the style of schooling education and replaced CBSE Board with CCE. The Board vide its Advisory No. 39 dated 20.9.2009 introduced Examination Reforms and Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) in the CBSE. Continuous and comprehensive evaluation is an education system newly introduced by CBSE in INDIA, for classes 9th and 10th. Continuous and comprehensive evaluation has been formulated by EDUCATION MINISTER KAPIL SIBAL to decrease the accumulated stress of board exams on the students and to introduce a more uniform and comprehensive pattern in education for the children all over the nation. As a part of this new system, student's marks will be replaced by grades which will be evaluated through a series of other factors along with academics. The aim is to reduce the workload on students and to improve the overall skill and ability of the student by means of evaluation of other activities. Grades are awarded to students based on work experience skills, dexterity, innovation, steadiness, teamwork, public speaking, behavior, etc. to evaluate and present an overall measure of the student's ability. This is supposed to help those students who are not good in academics but do well in other fields such as arts, humanities, sports, music, athletics, etc. Assessment is done through projects and internal assessments which will last the whole year.
Some students commit suicides when they secure fewer marks. Suppose 2 friends are there and both are equally talented and intelligent but if friend A secures 90% while the friend B secures 89 then the friend A is in rank 1 this hurts the sentiments of friend B and sometimes the undue pressure by parent increases stress on the minds of students leads to mental torture and can make friend B to commit suicide. The parents put their own expectations on the soft shoulders of their children which is very difficult for the children to bear that weight. By CCE what marks friend A and B secures will be same without any difference and both will get the same Grade. But the situation doesn't comes true when a student gets one grade less just by getting one mark less than other. If a person is getting 59% and other is getting 60%, one will get C Grade and other will get D grade. This 1% will make a big difference in that case.
Unit wise Marking Scheme:
The units specified for each term shall be assessed through both formative and summative assessments. In each term, there will be 2 formative assessments each carrying 10% weightage. The summative assessment in the first term will carry 20% weightage and in second term it will carry 40% weightage. There will not be any Unit tests except there will be formative and summative assessments which will be covered in 2 terms with first term carrying 40 marks and second term carrying 60 marks. Students will not have to learn the complete syllabus for exams, the portion of syllabus once completed in tests will not be repeated.
Impacts of this change
It is supposed that this reform will also assess the students on the basis of extra-curricular activities like sports, music, athletics etc. but here the practical experience of some of the people says that in-spite of reducing the burden of students, it is creating more pressure. Just due to this pressure the students are not getting time for sports, music, athletics etc. Earlier students used to study in exam days only but now they have to study whole years in order to prepare for formative and summative assessments, as these marks are going to be add into the finals. Some students say that they feel overburdened because of daily assignments and projects. Thanks to surprise tests and presentations, they can't afford to miss school even for a day. Teachers admit, it's a mix of both, "CCE aims at bringing out the latent talent of students. CCE is quite student-friendly but giving them a lot of written work as homework defeats the purpose. We stress more on classroom activities like pictorial depiction, role play, just-a-minute and no homework. Probably, that's why students in our school enjoy more.''
There is also a provision that there may be two options for the students first those who want to opt for board and the second for those who don't. There is another provision of online certification. There would be online demand test for those who don't want to take the board exams but also want to get the certificate later on. This certificate would be equivalent to 10th class certificate exam.
The purpose of introducing is going to be unsolved, as it has made students busier with assessments and tests instead of helping them to get outdoors and reconnect with the places that make our country so special. We need large scale reforms to make our education system competitive to the rest part of the world, but it is difficult to say how many more decades it will take?
