An article on grading system of CBSE X
CBSE board has introduced grading system for standard IX and X instead of current practice of awarding marks. This will come into effect for std. IX from October 2009 onwards and for std. X in March 2011 and thereafter.
The question arises in every student’s mind is “Is the Grade system is really good? Or will it affect me? “. In this article we discuss the pros and consequences of the grading system to dispel any misgivings about the system.
In the present system of awarding marks, there is a lot of stress on the students due to unhealthy competition among students. The new grading system will put an end to the hero or zero syndrome prevalent in many schools. There are many people like J.V.Krishnamurthy strongly believe that this type of competition hampers the real process of system.
In the new nine point scale grading system, marks 100 to 0 will be put into nine grades A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, D, E1 and E2. For example A1 represents marks in the range 91 to 100, E2 marks below 20. For more details of other grades refer Grading of CBSE you may get the details or CBSE circular from “Down load center” in www. Universaltutorials.com. The word failed would be abolished once system is successfully implemented thus reducing the stress on the students. Students obtaining D or better grade will be issued qualifying certificate and can seek admission for Std. XI. Others can improve the grade on subjects secured E1 or E2 by appearing again and get the qualifying certificate. .Students will gain more confidence in this system and they will start enjoy learning.
UT’s view:
Advantages:
As already discussed it reduces the stress on students. The system will change the very concept of education offered, emphasizing on education through years rather than a day’s exam. Further variations in the evaluation by different examiners are not going to affect the students as ranges of marks are grouped together.
Disadvantages
i) A scenario will emerge wherein all students scoring say above 91% in all subjects will have the same cumulative grading as shown in the example,
Subject |
Student 1` |
Student 2 |
Maths |
99 |
91 |
Social studies |
100 |
92 |
Science |
99 |
93 |
English |
97 |
91 |
Hindi |
95 |
92 |
Cumulative grade |
A1 |
A1 |
Last year in Navi Mummbai at Universal Tutorials itself there were 348 students scoring more than 90%. This will put into a problem of how will you rank them? How the admission process for standard XI will be based on? To address the problem, Percentile has been introduced by the board. In the percentile, the marks obtained by the first rank student is taken as 100 and the marks of the other students are normalized against it. In the example shown above Say student1 is top ranker. His percentile will be 100. Student 2 even though grouped in A1 his percentile will be i.e (91+92+93+91+92) * 100 / (99+100+99+97+95) equal to 93.7.
ii) In addition to CBSE, SSC by state boards and ICSE are also conducting exams for std X and they continue to follow the marks system and percentage of mark in each subject. Marks percentage and percentile are not comparable. This leads to an open ended situation particularly for std XI admission process and has to be seen how will be tackled.
Conclusion
The new system has various advantages and a student continuing studies in the same board will not be affected. But for a student who wishes to shift to another board, the procedure of standardization of percentile of CBSE board versus Marks awarded by other boards needs to be evolved. There should also be uniformity in the systems of different boards.
Grading system is part of CCE system being introduced. CCE is an ideal system and is suitable in a scenario where the choice of subjects for further studies does not depends on the grades obtained but solely depends on the aptitude of the student. In such situation only, stress on the students due to examination will seize to exist. In our country, infrastructures for higher studies are limited. Number of students seeking the admissions for a particular course is far more than the availability of seats to that course. This will lead to a situation that there will competitions for getting higher percentile which will form the basis for admissions to further studies. This amounts to old stuff in a new pack.