19 Aug : In a bid to garner support for his proposal, Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal on Tuesday interacted with students, teachers and academicians in Panchkula and said the gathering had a near unanimity over making class ten boards optional.
Participating in a consultation organised by CBSE on examination reforms, Sibal admitted that he started the reforms with “skeptism” but said the response in support of them has been overwhelming.
“Making Class X exams optional will mean that students who want to continue in the same school and do not need a CBSE certificate can choose not to appear for the boards”.
They will be judged on quarterly internal assessments.
” But students who want to move to another school after class X need to take the board exam,” Sibal told the gathering.
The current system of “testing student’s ability to memorise” leads to commercialisation of education where a student is trained or prepared to just sit for one particular exam.
“Our focus should be on how to improve the quality of education and not the quantity,” he said.
During the interaction, Sibal was bombarded with questions from students who wanted to know things like why he wanted to do away with exams, what are the other reforms he was planning and how he plans to do all this.
On whether he will ask other states to scrap class ten board exams, Sibal said, “There are 41 state boards in the country and we cannot ask them to scrap the exams. CBSE will begin the process then it is for the others to decide. We will make the beginning”.
The HRD Minister said he plans to replace marks with grades.
“Marks will be there but students will be judged on grades,” he said.
Today s interaction, a first in many ways, is part of CBSE s efforts to build a consensus on doing away with the class tenth board exams.
Thirty top CBSE schools from the region sent two students each along with two parents and a teacher to participate in the session.
They interacted with the HRD Minister on education policies which are in pipeline, said an official.
Sibal said the country’s education system cannot be changed in a day s time and that it is a continued process.On corporal punishment, Sibal said he was against such punishments to students.