By Joseph Varghese/Staff Reporter

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) India has made it mandatory for students of classes IX and X to score a minimum 25% marks in the Summative Assessment (SA) for being eligible for promotion to the next class. Similarly, the new rule also makes it compulsory for students to attend  the summative examinations, which they cannot bunk off.

A circular to this effect was sent to all the CBSE schools in India and abroad recently.  Many Indian schools affiliated to CBSE in Qatar confirmed that they had received the circular and the directives would be implemented from this academic year. The SA for the first semester of classes IX and X is midway in some schools while it is  starting from today in other
schools.

There are about 3,500 students studying in the IX and X classes in some nine Indian schools in Qatar.

With the implementation of the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) by the CBSE, the academic year has been divided into two semesters with two sets of Formative Assessment (FA) and SA in one academic year. As the examinations are graded in class IX and X, there was no separate percentage of marks for FA and SA until now.  While SA is based on the semester-end examinations, FA is marked on the basis of projects, group discussions and various class works completed by the students in the entire semester.

As per the new directive of CBSE, students have to score at least 25% in SA  in each subject and another 8% from FA, thereby get a minimum 33% for a passing grade in class IX and X. The final marks are calculated taking the aggregate of both the semesters separately for SA and FA. For SA2 in Class IX, a chance for improvement of the performance will be allowed as per  CBSE rules within a period of one month of the date of declaration of the results.

The new rule comes into effect from the current academic year of 2013-14 for class IX and for class X, it will be effective from 2014-15. A student, who fails to appear for SA1 in case of illness, will be given another chance until October 31. SA 2 will be held in March as per the schedule given by CBSE.

Students participating at national or international level sports may be exempted from appearance in one SA with prior approval from CBSE if the event coincides with the examination dates. In such cases, marks awarded in the other SA will be entered for both semesters.

Welcoming the new directives, MES Indian School Principal A P Sasidharan said that it was a very good decision. He said: “This will generate more interest in studies among the students. Moreover, students will be more focused on the semester-end examinations as they  have to score separately for both the types of assessments.”

Sasidharan added that the school was planning to implement the same for lower classes too though a final decision has not yet been taken.

Ideal Indian School Principal, Shoukat Ali said that it was a welcome move from the part of CBSE.  He said :”This will generate more interest among students and they will have to focus more on their assessments. At present we will implement it only for classes IX and X as CBSE has not given any clear guidance in this regard for the lower classes.”