CBSE to Mention Grace Marks in the Marksheets; Moderation Process Removed

In order to bring more transparency, the CBSE board has decided to mention the extra marks awarded to Class 12 students in order to help them pass a paper. The board has decided that these grace marks will be mentioned on marksheets.

Top officials discussed the matter along with the moderation process while checking answer sheets. The education ministry and other related state-level departments have also decided that extra marks should not be awarded for difficult questions as they result in sky-high cut-offs in universities such as DU.

Various states agreed with CBSE and have decided to scrap the moderation policy and mentioning the grace marks in the marksheet.

According to a senior official, CBSE will not be granting extra marks for tough questions and will implement this from this year’s board exam. He further informed that grace marks will also be mentioned in the marksheet from this year. Some state boards are already following this procedure and CBSE will try to convince the other boards to follow suit.

A Delhi University Official talked about the development and said that this move will result in a dip in cut-offs, however, the impact will be clear only after the new norms have been implemented.

Few of the states stated that mentioning the grace marks in the mark sheet could be seen as a stigma. However, other states argued that not mentioning these extra marks will be unfair for the students who pass without grace marks.

States have been granting grace marks and practising moderation to maintain the pass percentage. This has resulted in the unnecessary rise in the cut-offs in the university. Similarly, CBSE use to grant 10% to 15% extra marks in subjects like physics and mathematics that used to result in highest marks up to 95%.

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CBSE has also decided that it will start conducting single exam across the country to make sure that the difficulty levels remain same. Apart from this, the board has also decided to include the marks awarded for extracurricular activities (ECA) in the final score. This field will be separately mentioned on the marksheet and grades will be awarded for this field.

This step is being taken to ensure that students who participate in ECA get some advantage while taking admission in higher education institutes. A credit system will be evolved for the above with inputs from higher education department so that ECA students can get the preference over students who have scored the same marks.

Kerala has informed that it will not be able to scrape the practice of moderation from this year as the final marks include the extracurricular activities too. The marching scheme and evaluation process cannot be changed on such a short notice.

Also Read:CBSE may Introduce Practical tests for all Subjects of Class 11th & 12th

For the standardisation of school education, it has been decided that the states will adopt NCERT syllabus for core subjects like science and mathematics. Regional variations with other subjects are permissible.