The caption is a sequel of the usual customer reaction to a new product. The concept and its controversies! There was much hype politically and in the Media when CBSE introduced it in 2009 for class IX and in 2010 for class X as a commitment to the RTE Act, backed by the recommendations of various education commissions since 1947 including the NCERT’s latest NCF 2005.
The “No detention, no board examination” component of the package was lauded by the anxious parents of the vast multitude of average and below average performers hailing it as a stress remover and a respite from the threats of suicide from the so called innocent blackmailers. However it was not without genuine apprehensions voiced by quality seekers who claimed that the public examinations had an underlying motivational factor and justified the stress factor as preparatory to combating the future challenges in the world at large.
“Does the concept suffer from basic flaw notwithstanding the recommendations of the great proponents of education or has it been imbibed wrongly?” is the question that surfaces.
The Policy
Before venturing an answer to this, let us have a glimpse of what the commissions have to say on the subject.
In fact the history of evolution of board examinations is founded on extensive national debates in the form of committees and commissions. One cannot forget that the practice of conducting external exams at the end of class V and class VIII were in vogue at one point of time which has now been abolished. It is interesting to know what the various commissions opined regarding the role of boards and examination.
The Indian University Commission of 1902 said that Teaching in Indian education stood subordinated to examination and not examination to teaching.
The Hartog Committee of 1929 and the Sergeant Plan of 1944 deprecated academic bias of examinations at the school level, geared as they were to the needs of the majority who did not have access to the university system and were to enter life.
The 1948 Radhakrishnan Commission held that Examination Reform was a matter of very high priority in education reform as a whole.
The Mudaliyar Commission in 1952-53 made elaborate recommendations on examination reform, reduction in the number of external examinations, conduct of objective tests, assessment of attainments of the students through a proper system of school records, weightage for in-school tests, symbolic rather than numerical marking for purposes of evaluation and grading, etc.
In 1964-66 the Education Commission (Kothari Commission) considered examination reforms at all stages of education across the boards and called for evaluation being construed as a means to assess learner development on an objective basis.
It went further ahead to prescribe educational standards at regional and national level to be evolved on the basis of anticipated estimates as against actual based on performance striking a realistic balance. Its recommendations laid the foundation for establishment and defining the targets for the state and national boards:
"Accordingly the states shall establish boards to coordinate activities. The State boards shall define standards at different levels as per local conditions. The National board shall coordinate the national standards, beginning with class X, and extending to class VII/VIII and finally to class XII, the term national standard implying a minimum below which no state shall fall." Subsequently the CABE Committee recommended examination reforms in 1970.
In the chronology, next the National policy on education 1986 envisaged evaluation as a continuous process that would help the student to improve his/her level of achievement, as distinct from certification of the quality of his/her performance at a given moment of time.
It considered examination as a means for improvement of quality of education and made short-term and long-term recommendations. Specifically it called for removal of subjectivity in examinations, de-emphasis of memorization, CONTINUOUS AND COMPREHENSIVE internal Evaluation of scholastic and non scholastic achievements of students, improvement in the conduct of examinations, introduction of concomitant changes in instructional material and methodology, introduction of the semester system from the secondary stage in a phased manner, use of grades in place of marks.
In the program of action continuance of public examinations at the levels of classes X and XII, decentralized conduct of examinations and spot evaluation of answer scripts have been spelt out as short-term and stipulation of the levels of attainment expected at classes V, VIII, X and XII by the state boards of education, prescription of learning objectives by the state boards of education, development of schemes of evaluation on continuous basis, conduct of research in procedures for evaluation and examinations and examination through consortium of Boards of education, movement towards cumulative grading system as long term measures.
Experimental schools which would conduct their own class X exam with internal and external assessments not added and kept separate have also been suggested.
The Yashpal Committee in 1993 known for its concept of learning without burden observed that public exam at the end of class X and XII needed review with a view to replacing the prevailing text-based and quiz-type questioning which induces an inordinate level of anxiety and stress and promotes rote learning.
The most recent National Curriculum Framework, 2005 has reflected all such recommendations hitherto made holistically by enumerating examination reforms which are, "Better conduct exam in the student’s own school or near by school, avoiding postponement of exam, providing flexibility for staggered completion of exams, eliminating pass-fail terminology, conducting re-exam immediately to avoid loss of a year, prescribing two levels of syllabi in science and math in the short term and in all subjects in the long term, providing flexible time limit in exams, enabling guidance and counseling with Board help lines, adopting a paradigm shift from rote memory to analytical type of questions, shifting emphasis from content based to competency based questions and to make X board optional and at school level in the long term".
The RTE Act 2009 has rightly incorporated CCE in chapter V, article 29, 2), (h) as the mode of evaluation up to elementary level and also precluded in explicit terms the Board examination if conducted by any, as a mandatory component in 30,1). It reads as under:
“Continuous and comprehensive evaluation of child’s understanding of knowledge and his or her ability to apply the same.” (29, (2) (h)).
“No child shall be required to pass any Board examination till completion of elementary education.” (30, (2)).
As is seen the concept is not new and in fact at least a century old to have attracted attention at the national level. The then-honorable minister for human resource development rightly hit the nail on its head when he pointed out that the long term recommendation has indeed waited long enough and called for immediate action.
The provision in the latest act, adopted as a philosophy thus has left an open hook for future extensions in the vertical rung of our education system. A pace setter institution, the CBSE’s introduction at the secondary level therefore has provided the initial impetus to learn and evolve a universally viable policy in this regard.
The Implementation
What then is the apprehension about? Is it a mere fear of accepting anything that is new or has there been a real decline of quality? Even a potential curative if wrongly administered is bound to turn detrimental. Where exactly therefore has it gone wrong? Started as an important examination reform, CCE is an acronym that stands for Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation. Taking it from there, an Examination Board concerns itself with modifications in its examination system. This further focuses on the type of tests/examination, the number of such tests/examinations, their periodicity, allocation of syllabus for each test/examination, distribution of marks, conversion into grades seen as the panacea to stress, format of report cards, qualification criteria and certification. Limiting itself thus, what ensues is just the same tasks in a new jargon.
The CBSE went a step further and came out with written materials. Though the philosophy has been explained in general the material’s emphasis was more on the typology of tests once again leading to assess a child in his peer group at a given point of time instead of the need to show him in his own progression in constructing knowledge.
The attempt to paraphrase the terms "Continuous" and "Comprehensive" in terms of new jargon namely formative and summative assessments of the so-called scholastic subjects juxtaposed with a few parameters of personality development as non-scholastic, in a discrete distribution through the time frame of each class has marred the essence of continuity in holistic development.
One should realize that pedagogically speaking the boundaries between formative and summative assessments are very subtle in the curve of learning. Likewise the parameters of the comprehensive personality growth are densely integrated with the potential to learn and construct knowledge and serve as suggestive tools in simulating appropriate learning experiences.
In fact, in many a training program several class room practitioners were found to associate CCE immediately to the new format of the report card. Sadder still, the teachers see the empowerment in terms of exercising control over the child instead of the pedagogic flexibility offered to them in individualizing instruction for realistic learning for each child in their custody. Unfortunately they center their task of teaching on paraphrasing the prescribed textbook and conducting disjointed tests for documenting the grade symbols filled in the prescribed columns of a meaningless report card. There are several competitors in the market who have patented generators of these report cards in the name of reducing the teachers’ ordeal. Not to speak of individualized instruction, many a teacher do not even lock their eyes with the students even in general as they are busy communicating between the text book and the board. Reaching out to the mind and soul of each child to bring out the real person inside is a far cry.
So long as the teachers do not appreciate the relevance of the concept of CCE in their teaching process, catering to the infinitely variant needs of the multitude of human minds, each bestowed with unique powers of thinking, the apprehension will remain. So long as they resort to a mechanical application the very essence of the quality enhancement inbuilt in the concept will be lost and it would be difficult to restore the faith of the stakeholders who believe in the one-time assessment of a faceless examination being more objective as paying better dividends in terms of quality.
The CCE has become a thing of the past. It had major flaws, the first among those flaws being its departure from the recommendations of various education commissions emphasizing the removal of examination fear and the stress factor associated with it. The NCERT recommended in its 1989 document that continuous and comprehensive evaluation should be done in an informal manner. Contrary to this, the CCE was formal with "monstrous" data sheet work (The word used by Mr. Jacob, one of the members of the CCE committee) for teachers. Teachers discontent is not about the 'new' but about the things it pushed down the throats of both students and teachers where testing consuming more time than teaching. The Project Officer from…