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Education News
DELHI any weightage to the class XII board
Promising PARAKH exam scores. “CUET has severely
devalued the high school education
system. With CUET scores being the
be all and end all for college admis-
sions, higher secondary students
may well abandon schools and
flock to coaching centres to prep for
CUET,” says Acharya, also principal
of the CBSE-affiliated ITL Public
School, Dwarka, Delhi.
Therefore, on the recommenda-
tion of the Dr. K. Kasturirangan
Committee’s report, the National
Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has
mandated the PARAKH (Perfor-
mance, Assessment, Review &
Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic
Development) programme to set and
regulate common syllabuses and
curriculums for all 69 examination
CBSE school-leavers writing final exam: grades inflation hurdle next boards to ensure equivalence of chil-
dren’s learning outcomes country-
ith the two national do likewise. Hence grades inflation wide. According to NCERT sources,
school examination has become a national practice with finalisation of the PARAKH template
Wboards — the Central schools (and test-prep firms) trum- is nearing completion and parity or
Board of Secondary Education peting the 95 percent-plus average near-equivalence between all exam
(CBSE, 28,926 affiliated schools) scores of their students. boards will become a reality by 2026.
and Council for the Indian School In turn, this has prompted the Simultaneously, the two national
Certificate Examinations (CISCE, country’s top-ranked colleges to boards — CBSE and CISCE whose
2,700 schools) — and 69 state boards notify impossibly high — sometimes affiliated higher secondary schools
scheduled to stage their school- 100 percent — admission cut-offs. could be reduced to irrelevance by
leaving examinations within the next To get around the problem of school India’s Rs.20,000 crore test-prep
four months, exam fever has broken board exams equivalence, in 2022, aka coaching industry — are in the
out across the country. the University Grants Commission process of ringing in syllabus/curric-
The peaceful co-existence of such introduced CUET (Common Univer- ulum and assessment reforms to take
a large number of school-leaving sity Entrance Test) to determine ad- on the test-prep industry by switch-
exam boards prescribing differing mission into colleges affiliated with ing from rewarding rote learning and
syllabuses and curriculums and prac- 56 Central government universities. memorisation skills to developing
tising liberal and rigorous marking Since then, several state government children’s comprehension, thinking
of exam papers has always posed a and private universities have also and knowledge application skills
problem for the admission depart- started admitting school-leavers on which will henceforth be rewarded
ments of the country’s 42,000 junior the basis of CUET scores. by exam boards.
(classes XI-XII) and undergrad col- However, the hurried introduc- “It’s a misconception that the
leges countrywide. tion of CUET in 2022 has endan- introduction of CUET has rendered
For several decades under a gered the country’s secondary school leaving exams irrelevant.
Central government directive Central education system and the class XII CBSE has already notified that
government and aided colleges are examinations of national and state henceforth it will be assessing the
obliged to give equivalence to marks/ boards, in particular. critical thinking, problem solving
grades attained by students in class Sudha Acharya, former chair- and knowledge application skills of
XII exams countrywide. Yet it’s an person of the Delhi-based National students writing the class X and XII
open secret that some state boards Progressive Schools’ Conference board exams. This will not only pre-
mark answer papers very liberally. (NPSC) which has a membership pare school children for CUET but
This has prompted even national of 400 private CBSE schools, is also international tests such as PISA.
boards — CBSE and CISCE — to opposed to CUET for not according Very soon schools will be able to
22 EDUCATIONWORLD JANUARY 2024