CBSE results 2021: Impact of this year's unique board exams and future of students

Pandemic 19 has forced us to find unique ways of existing; overcoming unforeseen challenges and one of them has been the calculation of Board results for grades 10 and 12 for the batch 2020 – 21. With the absence of a uniform written exam, CBSE devised a system where for the calculation of marks for grade 12, where 30% of the total of 3 best performing subjects of Std. 10 Board, 30% of the total of theory marks of all the subjects of Std. 11 and 40% of the marks awarded during internal assessment with different components of theory and practical marks in Std. 12 have been compiled together to calculate the final marks. For Std. 10, internal exam marks out of 80 marks have been considered. CBSE has also knitted the provision of being able to take an improvement exam even if it is for one subject. No merit list has been announced this year, for very obvious reasons.

Largely, the students of Std. 10 and 12 are happy with the Board results. Students achieving above 95% have nearly doubled this year. Despite this, there are some parents and students who are not completely satisfied; but when has it ever been different. The marks are definitely inflated this year but considering the break in the academic process, sudden shifting of schools to an online mode, learning to combat the situation created by the pandemic, facing extreme suffering due to Covid and sometimes deaths in families, it will be foolhardy to expect students to have maintained their focus. The guidance received from schools has been missing and keeping children safe was paramount and so I would say that CBSE has been ingenious in their way of calculating the Board marks. Some may object to this method of calculation, as each school had its own way of deciding which internal mark component to take into consideration, students, when they were in Std. 11, had no idea that their marks of this year too will be considered, students did not take their Std. 12 Half Yearly Exams seriously and many opted out of appearing for the Pre Board Exams as their parents wanted to keep them in the safety of their homes. In such a scenario, the best possible has been done.

The impact of this should be that students who used to put in their best only during the Board Exam years and would declare Std. 11 as the year of rejuvenation before they would again plunge into the 12^th Board year, will henceforth take their learning seriously in all the grades, which is what it should have been. The very important art of self-study too has been learnt by a large number of students. Anyway, Board marks in our country have been always inflated and at the end of the day the students of India will have to learn that in the long run it is always knowledge that will win over marks. Boards or no Boards, students with skill sets will never fail to make their mark.

We should not just concentrate on students of just grades 10 and 12, but right from grade 1 to 11, parents and schools need to put in extra effort on the batch 2020 – 21, to ensure that the grade wise knowledge is imparted. Students will need to work a little harder so that the gap in grade wise knowledge does not remain.

I wish great health and safety to all!

The author is the former principal of a top CBSE school and Founder Director of an educational venture, Conscious Education working in the field of teacher training and curriculum designing.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own and do not reflect those of DNA.)