Grade 10 board exams: What we know so far

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) was the first in India to cancel the Grade X board exams for 2021 because of the deteriorating Covid-19 situation. Students were to be evaluated on objective criteria by the CBSE and other state boards also decided to cancel exams and follow suit.

The CBSE criteria included 20 marks based on internal assessments already done by most schools, 10 marks for periodic/unit test, 30 for half-yearly/mid-term examinations, and 40 for pre-board examinations. It also prescribed internal moderation based on the historical performance of a school, taking the best performance of the last three years’ board examinations as the ‘reference year’.

A news report on Saturday evaluated the strategies unveiled by various other state boards. According to it, some states including Assam have only postponed the exams until further notice and have not cancelled them.

The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), which cancelled the class 10 ICSE board exams, asked the affiliated schools to prepare datasheets of class marks in class 9 and 10. They have to submit the data of all assessments conducted in academic years 2019-20 and 2020-21. Final guidelines to assess class 10 students have not been released.

The Chhattisgarh Board of Secondary Education (CGBSE) deferred the class 10 exams and students who were not able to appear for practical or projects will be awarded the minimum marks required for passing. Class 10 results will be based on internal assessment and in theory and a maximum of 72 out of 75 marks will be awarded. For theory exams of additional subjects, a maximum of 29 out of 30 can be awarded and 68 out of 70 will be valid for practical exams.

The Gujarat government decided to mass promote all 870,000 students of class 10 under the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board and other programmes from nearly 11,000 schools. Students reappearing for class 10 board exams are exempted from the mass promotion. Examinations for these students will be held only after the Covid-19 cases drop.

The West Bengal government cancelled the state board exams that were to be held in June. The Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad cancelled the class 10 board exams that were to be held from April 24 to May 10. The evaluation criteria will be released later this month.

The Karnataka government postponed the class 10 exams originally scheduled from June 21 to July 5. It will conduct the SSLC exams in July. The Maharashtra state board cancelled the SSC class 10 exams, while the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education released the evaluation criteria for the students who will be evaluated based on their marks in class 9 and 10; marks of both the classes with have 50 per cent weightage. Of the total, 50 marks will be calculated based on the performance in class 9. The remaining 50 will be divided into two – 30 marks will be for the internal assessment of class 10 and 20 marks will be for practical or homework or assignments.

© Khaleej Times