Testing time

You may have loved it or hated it, but you can’t ignore it any longer: the CBSE Class 10 board exams will be back from 2018. The board approved the proposal to revive the compulsory test, and there’s no reason why the government wouldn’t accept it. There’s much to be said on both sides of the argument, but in matters like these its best that experts decide what’s best for our students. We had five years of the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) system under RTE without it making any visible impact on student performance. To go back and give students a kind of preparatory test under strict conditions for them to face the crucial Class 12 exams two years later isn’t an unwelcome initiative.

The Class 10 exam offers a credible way to assess a student against an exam system, while giving him/her a chance to test against peers, and it’s good exposure for young people. The atmosphere in India can only get more competitive and it’s best if young people get prepared to be tested.  Also, by retaining 20 per cent weightage for school evaluation, there’s scope for all-round performance evaluation rather than just exam-oriented rote learning.

The policy changes in learning languages are likely to be bewildering, with only English and Indian languages among the first three to be studied upto Class 10, while foreign languages will be optional.  An ideological tilt is visible in the decision-making, including in extending Sanskrit study by two years. But then, has it ever been possible to separate education from politics in India?