CBSE 12th Boards: Is the 30-30-40 formula a fair way to arrive at board results?

12th standard students studying in CBSE schools were not able to give the all-important board exams this year. In order to allow them admission in colleges and not waste their year, CBSE arrived at a formula to assign marks. 30% weightage will be given to a student’s 10th Board marks, 30% weightage will be given to their 11th standard marks and 40% weightage will be given to their 12th standard marks.

Some students are against this concept because they feel that their school teachers might be biased towards a select few. A lot of teachers run private tuitions and they may give more marks to the ones who take these classes. There’s also a possibility of corruption taking place where students related to influential figures get more marks. Additionally, some schools set tougher papers than others and that leads to inconsistent marking.

For colleges, this creates a headache because they want to make their admission system fair. Some colleges have therefore resorted to relying solely on a candidate’s entrance exam scores. In an interview with India Today, Dr Akhil Shahani (MD of the Shahani Group) said, “College admissions before Covid were based on the marks students got in standardised exams. With each board coming up with their own formula for Class 12 marks, it will be difficult for colleges to use a single merit list for admissions as there is no basis for comparison. This will unfortunately cause confusion and unfairness as each college may use their own model for admissions which could allow less meritorious students getting into courses with the more meritorious being left behind.”

While some colleges have the resources to conduct their own exam, a lot of them don’t. They have to accept students based on their marks and there is a possibility of injustice meted out to some students.

To address this, CBSE has given students who are not happy with their marks to appear for optional examinations in August. Some people don’t take their 11th standard seriously, some feel that the teacher has a grudge against them and some believe that they can do better with added preparation time. Even though this might seem fair, it must be noted that a lot of students have been marked generously. Almost 99.37% of students have passed and 70,000+ (around 5%) have secured more than 95%. To compete with such generous marking, one has to perform out of their skins in the optional exams in August.

The whole concept of examinations has suffered in the Covid-19 era and many institutions struggle to stop their students from using unfair means. A student can write notes on his/her arm, keep a book in their field of vision without letting it get detected by the camera, use a secondary laptop or use a calculator. We aren’t living in an era where people see cheating in tests as a sin.

And when examinations suffer, education suffers too. Students don’t pay as much attention to lectures and feel that they can get decent marks without putting in much effort.

The trend looks like it’ll continue for some time as vaccinations haven’t even opened up for children in India. As unfortunate as it may seem, this is the new normal.

References:

1. Should cheating be redefined for online exams? (The New Indian Express)

2. How fair is the CBSE’s new formula for board results? (India Today)

3. CBSE Class 12 Board Exam result 2021: Impact on UG courses, college admission cut-off (DNA India)

4. CBSE Result 2021: Don't Spike 95%+ Scorers, Schools Asked to Moderate Marks (News18)