Testing times for I PU students as continuous evaluation is scrapped

Testing times for I PU students as continuous evaluation is scrapped

Mangalore Today News Network

Bangalore, Jan 29, 2013 : It will be testing times for over five lakh first pre-university (PU) students thanks the authorities’ flip-flop.

 

For most part of this academic year, they had relied on the promise that their performance in the full academic year — instead of just the annual examination — would determine their promotion to II PU. But now it appears that someone up there has had second thoughts just weeks before the final examination.

With the Department of Pre-University Education now deciding to scrap the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) system, which had been implemented for almost the whole academic year, students now have to give it their all at the final exams. 

This means that their performance in the four tests and a mid-term exam (in addition to projects and assignments which were also evaluated) conducted over the past year will remain as mere records.

Flawed system?

A senior DPUE official told The Hindu that the decision to do away with the CCE for the academic year 2012-13 was taken at a meeting about 10 days ago after several lacunae were found in the system.

He, however, maintained that this was only a “postponement” as the department planned to reintroduce it next year.

“We want to examine the drawbacks in the present system and implement a better version for the next batch.” Though the department is yet to formally issue the circular, these developments essentially mean that colleges will have to revert to the previous system of conducting I PU examination, in which the question papers will be prepared at the state-level and distributed to the districts.

What was it?

The CCE was introduced this academic year to reduce students’ burden, thereby enabling more numbers to pass. On an average, some 1.5 lakh I PU students out of 6 lakh fail to pass the I PU exam.

CCE envisaged taking into consideration scores from the four tests, mid-term examination, projects and assignments instead of only the performance in the final examination.

The final exam itself would have been conducted by the colleges, instead of the Deputy Directors of Public Instruction (DDPIs).

Dropped

Explaining the abrupt backtracking, a member of the CCE committee of DPUE said that the experiment “was not CCE as prescribed by the Central Board of Secondary Education, as it was misunderstood to be a method of conducting periodic tests and nothing more.”

This was proving burdensome to students, defeating the very purpose of the system.

“Also, as the class strength is not uniform across the State, teachers of classes where the strength was more found it difficult to maintain records,” the official added.

 

Coutesy : The Hindu