HSC examinees in Odisha confused over assessment delay by the Board of Secondary Education

Examinees appearing for High School Certificate (HSC) examinations are an anxious lot as the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) has gone ahead with conducting the second Summative Assessment (SA) test without publishing results of the first SA exam. Besides this, the students are yet to know the results of four Formative Assessments (FAs) — each carrying 20 marks — conducted by their respective schools. Following Board’s directive, the schools have uploaded the marks to the BSE website through mentor schools.

In a bid to tide over the problems faced during evaluation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the BSE had come up with a new assessment plan for High School Certificate (HSC) courses for the current academic session. Focusing on continuous comprehensive evaluation (CCE), the BSE had instructed schools to go for internal assessments at the school level periodically in the form of FAs. The Board, on its part, had decided to conduct the two SAs. While SA-1 was conducted from January 5 to January 8, the SA-2 began on April 29.

“We have been appearing for examinations after examinations but we are yet to know the results. We haven’t even been informed about our four formative assessments yet,” said a student requesting anonymity. Parents and guardians alleged that the Board will award marks at its own will as the students are unaware of their scores in the tests.

“If the results were declared, the students would have been able to know about their weakness in any subject and could have focused on it for improvement,” said educationist and former general secretary of OSSTA Kishore Kumar Panda. BSE president Ramashis Hazra said that the results of SA 1 and 2 will be published on time. He informed that the school authorities have been advised to show results of internal assessments to the students.