Recently, the Ministry of Education analysed the Class X and Class XII results of the 2021-22 academic year for the state boards of Odisha and nine other states to understand the variations in results. The exercise was aimed at understanding the need for a standard assessment pattern for all 60 school boards across states.
Odisha is among eight states where the Ministry of Education wants a standard assessment pattern (board exam) for students as per the mandate of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Similar to Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal, Manipur and Telangana, Odisha has separate boards for secondary and higher secondary, as stated in a report by The New Indian Express.
While students write the matriculation (Class X) exam under the Board of Secondary Education, the annual higher secondary examination is conducted by the Council of Higher Secondary Examination (CHSE).
So earlier, this week the Ministry's report pointed out that there are large differences in the results (Class X and XII) which might be due to different patterns and approaches followed by the boards. In the case of Odisha, both the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) and CHSE have their own standard, syllabus and timelines for examinations and announcement of results.
According to the assessment, only 25.9 per cent of students in the state are scoring 80 per cent and above marks in the Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSC) exam while the percentage comes down to 23 per cent at higher secondary level. In this regard, Secretary of School Education under the Ministry Sanjay Kumar said last month the issue of developing a common assessment system was discussed with all the states.
Speaking on this, he said, "Since NEP recommends establishing equivalence of academic standards among learners across all school boards, an assessment of the existing system of school boards through examination results was done." Therefore, based on the report, all states have been asked to work on the process of standardising assessment.
What else did the Ministry of Education suggest?
The ministry has also suggested that state boards should converge their syllabus with that of the CBSE so that students have a level playing field for common exams such as Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). Meanwhile, officials of CHSE, however, said there is no immediate proposal or decision to standardise assessment for both Class X and XII students.
"Contrary to the ministry's observation that there is no level playing field for students in terms of standard and movement across the boards, no problems related to students' performance has come to our notice so far. Students have been doing well at both the levels," they said.
This year, while 96.4 per cent of students cleared the HSC exam, 84.9 per cent cleared Plus II Science and 81.1 per cent was the number for Commerce. Plus II Arts results are yet to be announced. Officials added that a standard assessment will be considered only when there is a policy decision on NEP in the state, as stated in a report by The New Indian Express.
