Central Board of Secondary education (CBSE) has now made practical assessment mandatory for Maths and language courses. A weightage of at least 20 marks will be given to the internal assessment/ Practical/ Project work in subjects such as Mathematics, Languages, Political science, and legal studies. The practical assessment of these courses is made compulsory for the classes XI and XII from the academic session 2019-20 onward. From April 2019, i.e from the start of the new session, the changes mentioned will be implemented.
“It is a necessity now that ‘assessment of learning’ must be augmented with ‘assessment as learning’ and ‘assessment for learning.’’ – CBSE. This decision was taken right after the MHRD’s participation in PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) in 2021. This introduction is planned to encourage creative and critical thinking among the students.
Until now, these the assessment for these subjects was only based on the written exam. But as the CBSE aims to encourage creative and critical thinking among the students, this step became mandatory. The ratio of the weightage of practical subjects to the written examination has also been set to 20:80 from this year.
This implementation is also a result of the poor performance of the students in class 10th in the National Assessment Survey (2017-2018). As per the report card of the National Assessment survey, the class X student’s performance in the subjects such as Mathematics, Science, Social Science, English and Modern Indian Languages is 52%, 51%, 53%, 58%, and 62%.
Although, the percentage data of the students have given CBSE a spot above the national average. However, CBSE is still hoping for an improvement in the performance of the students.
The ratio has been set for the subjects such as Humanities, Commerce, Science and Fine Arts. A practical assessment of 20 marks is now mandatory for these subjects. CBSE has also informed that the ratio for these subjects will be 20:30. For the science-based subjects and fine arts, 30:70 and 70:30 is the ratio respectively. Subjects that carry 100, 80 and 70 marks will have a time duration of 3 hours.
Some other Changes
Some other important changes include the decrease in the number of subjective questions in the exam so that the students are able to write analytical as well as creative answers. Objective type questions have been given 25% minimum and 75% maximum weightage of marks respectively.
The official statement read – “This circular is being issued in advance to enable schools to prepare for implementing the few proposed changes from next academic session onwards,” reads a statement issued by the board.”
