Breaking: Class XII Students To Be Evaluated Based On Performance in Class X (30%), Class XI (30%) And Class XII (40%) : CBSE Tells Supreme Court

The CBSE on Thursday informed the Supreme Court that it will evaluate the Class XII students for theory based on 30% marks from Class X, 30% from Class XI and 40% from Class XII, along with marks for practicals/internal assessment on actual basis as uploaded by the Schools on CBSE Portal.

The submissions were made a before a vacation of Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice Dinesh Maheshwari during the hearing of the petition filed by Advocate Mamata seeking cancellation of the Class 12 CBSE and ICSE written exams

During the hearing, the Attorney General for India KK Venugopal explained the policy as formulated by CBSE to evaluate the students.

"CBSE has been in existence since 1929 and this has never happened before in the history of CBSE. They have designed this with a committee of experts. For this purpose, CBSE has taken three classes - 10, 11 and 12." AG said.

He stated that Class X is a Board exam, and the subjects are different from those in Class XI and XII.

With regard to Class XI, each one of the exams including the unit, term exam and final exam has been taken. The marks are similar and are averaged out. He added that there will be practical exams as well, which would be for 100%. While 30 questions each for Class 10th and 11th are taken as weightage, for class XIIth, 40% is taken as weightage.

"Then we come to class 11, this is 70%. Same thing will happen with maximum being 24. For 10, it will be 80. For class 12, 40% will be taken. In case of Class 12th, the maximum will be 32. Class 12th is an important exam. The Practical is 100, and the total, if you take 32 and 24, will come to 56." AG explained

After explaining the mark distribution, Attorney General further said that the Result Committee, which will also be the moderation Committee, would comprise of two of the senior most teachers and an expert will also be invited, if necessary.

AG also informed the Court that the internal performance of the school will be taken on an average to ensure standardisation, and the historical performance of Schools will be taken as a reference.

"The subject-wise marks assessed by the school for 2020-2021 should be within a range of plus/minus 5 marks obtained by the students in the school in the subject in the reference year." AG said

With regards to those students who would not be able to meet the qualifying criterion, AG stated that those students will be placed in "Essential Repeat" or Compartment Category.

While stating that those Students who would not be satisfied could appear again, AG stated that the examinations will be conducted by the Board as and when the conditions become conducive.

A division Bench of Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice Dinesh Maheshwari was hearing the plea filed by Advocate Mamta Sharma seeking cancellation of the Class 12 CBSE and ICSE written exams.

On the last hearing of Adv Mamta Sharma's plea, Supreme Court had granted two weeks time to the CBSE and the ICSE to decide the objective criteria for alternate mode of assessment for Class 12 students, in lieu of the exams cancelled on account of COVID.

Attorney General for India KK Venugopal, appearing for the CBSE, had informed the bench about the decision taken by the Central Government on June 1 to cancel the CBSE exams and had further submitted that a decision on objective criteria would be taken within 2 weeks.

In response to request for a uniform decision with respect to State Board Exams, a vacation bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari had observed that interests of the entire student community will be taken into account, adding that it will wait for the decision of CBSE and CISCE first, before considering other issues.

"Everything will be resolved , all issues we will taken into account, interests of student community will be taken into account whether its CBSE, ICSE or other Boards." the Bench has orally observed.

In view of the uncertain surge in the COVID case and the feedback obtained from various quarters, the Central Government had on June 1st decided that Central Board of Secondary Education Class XII Board Exams would not be held this year.

It also decided that the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) would take steps for compiling the results of class XII students as per well-defined objective criteria in a time-bound manner.

The decision had come after, Supreme Court had observed that if Centre decided to depart from previous year's policy, it would need to give good reasons, as last year the decision was taken after good deliberation.

The directions were issued by the Court on the filed by Advocate Mamta Sharma seeking directions for setting aside the Notification dated 14th,16th and 19th April 2021 issued by CBSE and Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination only in respect of clauses dealing with the postponement of Class XII examination.

The petitioner sought similar directions as passed by the top Court in the matter of Amit Bathla & Anr. V. CBSE & Ors. (2020), in similar circumstances caused to Covid - 19 pandemic India to meet out the hardships of the innocent school children of Class XII of CBSE and ICSE. The Apex Court through that judgement, had directed the computation and declaration of the result of class XII students on the basis of their earlier grading as their main final examination had been postponed and could not be conducted due to unprecedented situation caused by pandemic.

The plea stated that CICSE/ CBSE had already, through their circulars dated 26th June and 13th July 2020, accepted and admitted the severe situation of covid 19 and partly accepted the judgment of Supreme Court passed last year for present academic session of 2020-2021 in respect of class X students. This has been done by issuing the directions not to conduct their fresh final examination and adopting the criteria of declaring result on the basis of their earlier internal grading.

However, according to the petitioner, for the innocent students of class XII, "step-motherly arbitrary, inhuman direction" have been issued to postpone their final examination for an unspecified duration instead of following the directions propounded and accepted by them last year.

The petitioner, enrolled as an advocate with Delhi Bar Council stated that she was approached by the minor students of Class XII approached, and filed the petition on their behalf, as their claim is genuine and to protect their fundamental rights of education under article 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India.

The plea also argued that in view of the unprecedented health emergency and rising numbers of the Covid -19 cases in the Country, the conduct of examination, either offline/online/ blended in upcoming weeks is not possible and delay in the examination will cause irreparable loss to the students as time is the essence in taking admission in higher education courses in foreign universities.

"As per the UNESCO statistics for the year 2018 around 7.3 lakh students had opted for foreign universities to pursue higher education. Delay in declaration of result will ultimately hamper one semester of the aspiring students as admission cannot be confirmed until the result of Class XII is declared." the plea stated.

Intervention Application For Cancellation Of Exams In Assam: Students of Assam due to appear in Xth and XIIth State Board Examinations 2021 also filed an intervention application in the present case, seeking directions for cancellation of Class X and XII Board Examinations, 2021 in the State of Assam.

They have sought directions to the State Government, Assam Higher Secondary Education Council and Board of Secondary Education, Assam ('SEBA') to arrive at a formula for performance evaluation of the Students of Assam in line with the formula adopted by CBSE and other Education Boards and to release the results in a time bound manner.

Edited by Srishti Ojha

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