Govt mulls new rules for passing Class 10, 12

Govt mulls new rules for passing Class 10, 12 

MUMBAI: State board students may no longer be able to bank on their practical papers to pass their board exams. 

To stop schools and colleges from being generous while marking students’ practical exam papers, the state school education department is likely to introduce separate passing criteria for theory and practical papers in the Class 10 and 12 state board exams from the next academic year. 

The department is likely to enforce a rule, where students need at least 20% marks in the written exam alone, along with an overall (theory and practical) 35% marks to pass the boards. 

The Maharashtra state board had submitted a proposal with this formula to the department a year ago. At present, students need a total of 35 out of 100 marks to pass exams. 

Officials from the board said their proposal is expected to get the department’s nod soon. 

“It has been a year since we gave the proposal to the department. It is now finally being discussed by officials,” said Gangadhar Mhamane, chairperson of the state board. “We are expecting a government resolution anytime now.” 

Written exams in the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) are assessed by the board, while the practical papers are assessed by schools and olleges, which usually mark students leniently to make them pass. This was leading to an inflation of marks.

The board’s proposal came after the pass rate of students in both SSC and HSC exams soared by 20% in two years, after the existing passing criteria was introduced. 

In 2014, the state board recorded its highest success rate in more than a decade, with the pass percentage for fresh candidates crossing 90% for the first time in both the exams. Between 2011 and 2013, the pass percentage had not crossed 70% -79%. 

“We investigated the reasons for the sudden surge in the number of students passing the exam,” said Mhamane. “And, we found students scoring as low as 15 % in theory were passing the exam because of their practical marks.” 

The proposal has also called for change in the passing criteria for Class 9 and Class 11 in 2015. As the proposal was delayed, it will now be possible to introduce the new criteria for these classes only in the next academic year, 2016-17, along with the Class 10 and 12 board exams. 

Source | Hindustan Times | 20 November 2015

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Pralhad Jadhav

Khaitan & Co