New Delhi, August 25
The government is all set to scrap class X board exams in all senior secondary CBSE-affiliated schools from the next academic session. A nine-point grading formula has also been put in place for the next session to replace the marking system to assess students in classes IX and X in CBSE schools. Schools with classes up to class X only will, however, continue to have board exams.

“The element of optional board exams exists only in the sense that while students of schools up to class X would have to sit for boards as that would be the sole assessment tool available to them, those in senior secondary schools with classes up to XII need no class X board certificate to graduate to another class in the same school. They can still take the exam if they want,” top HRD ministry sources yesterday told The Tribune.

On assessment front, a consensus has been reached on evaluating the students on academic and non-academic fronts throughout the year. No student will fail. The students with lowest grade - proposed as E2 - will be allowed to take a reappear. Those who are ill can take the exams later, and every child would have to clear four subjects in five.

While academic grading will be based on the “indirect and absolute” nine-tier grading system (teachers will first give marks and then translate them into grades for students), non-academic grading will factor in student’s intelligence, creativity and social skills and will happen through various modes of assessment through the year like group work, class tests, oral evaluation and projects. The nine-point system is being practised in several western countries and even in Kerala and Nagaland.

“Basically, we will evaluate the student’s participation in activities and assess his levels of participation. The idea is to allow every student to come alive. So an academically bright student may not be rated very well non-academically and vice versa. But in the final assessment both will fare equally well,” said CBSE sources, who held wide consultations on the issue before telling the HRD ministry that they were “prepared for reform”.

The last such consultation is slated at Indore tomorrow. So far, meetings have been held on the subject in Chandigarh, Trivandrum, Guwahati, Chennai and Lucknow. CBSE sources yesterday said grades could be named later as A1, A2, A3 and so on. “But that is immaterial. The point is that in a certain bracket of marks, a certain grade will be fixed. That’s called the absolute grading system,” CBSE officials said.