Open Letter to CBSE and NCERT

The Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) decision to go back to the compulsory mode of national-level Class 10 examinations is regrettable. As has been pointed out by many educationists, this goes in the wrong direction and against the reforms that one expects in our school examination system. This decision is in reaction to the no-detention policy accepted under the Right to Education Act, 2009. The progressive clause of the act is being blamed for all the ills and dysfunctionality within the government school system. The spirit of the clause was to retain all children at school and provide them with an enabling atmosphere alongside regular feedback through continuous and comprehensive evaluation (CCE) as was suggested by the act. A lack of collaboration and foresight between the CBSE and the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in implementing this clause has resulted in the reaction that we find at the school level.

One of the reasons why schoolteachers and the administration appear to welcome this move back to the board examination system at the Class 10 level is the great dissatisfaction with which CCE was implemented. The forms required to be filled and reported acquired a life of their own and defeated the purpose of providing feedback to teachers and increasing their confidence levels. As some colleagues pointed out, this was ceaseless monitoring and disempowerment for all concerned. The spirit of CCE was overturned.