As the state gears up to hold annual examinations for students of classes 5 and 8 next year, it has decided to prepare the test module in a manner that evaluates them based on their conceptual understanding of subjects, critical thinking and application of knowledge in real-life situations.
The School and Mass Education (SME) department has recently come out with guidelines to hold the annual examinations for both the grades, with focus on both the internal assessments and the final exam.
For Class 5, 60 per cent marks will be derived from internal assessment and 40 pc from annual exams. Likewise for Class VIII, 50 pc marks will be calculated from internal assessment and another 50 pc from annual exams.
The annual examinations will include both oral (10 marks) and written test (40 marks) for Class 5 students, while for those in Class 8, the assessment will be entirely based on a written (50 marks) examination. For both the grades, the questions will be structured to assess different cognitive levels with emphasis on knowledge (15 marks), understanding of the subject (20 marks) and its application in real-life situations (15 marks).
A higher official of the department said examinations will adhere to a pre-defined difficulty ratio to ensure a balance assessment. While 30 pc questions will be easier ones, 40 pc will be moderately difficult and another 30 pc will be difficult questions.
Earlier in July this year, the state government had announced that the new rule will be implemented from the 2025-26 academic session. The department has decided to conduct the examinations for both the grades in February and declare the results by the last week of March.
For this purpose, the department has formed a nine-member state-level steering committee headed by commissioner-cum-secretary of the SME department to oversee the entire process. There will be district and block-level committees to implement the exams.
A student has to secure a minimum of 30 pc to be promoted to the next class but in case he or she doesn’t, they will undergo remedial coaching in the school for four to six weeks before appearing for a supplementary exam. Teachers will conduct 2-3 hours of focused remedial classes for such students. For the supplementary examination, 100 pc weightage will be given to the test and no internal assessment marks will be considered.
Detaining students in a class based on their annual exam performance was stopped in the state after the Right to Education (RTE) Act was passed in 2009. Section 16 of the RTE Act stipulated that “no child admitted in a school shall be held back in any class or expelled from school till the completion of elementary education (classes I to VIII)”. However in December last year, the Ministry of Education did away with the ‘no detention’ policy for students of classes 5 and 8.
