Gujarat state board exam papers to give more weightage to subjective

Following repeated incidents of students scoring above 90 per cent in the objective section and zero in the subjective in the Class X examinations, the state education board is planning to change the examination pattern by giving more weightage to the descriptive questions.

A proposal in this regard has already been discussed in the monthly meeting of the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (GSHSEB) in July and it would be further debated for feasibility and implementation in the upcoming meeting of the board this month, officials said.

“The change in examination pattern as a solution to such incidents where students are either dictated answers from outside the examination hall by their school teachers or by other means — which go undetected by the CCTV cameras — has been mooted, and recently discussed at the board meeting. Other factors too have been taken into consideration like such cases being more rampant in the Class X mathematics exam, and in the tribal districts,” said GSHSEB Deputy Chairman R R Thakkar.

Sources said that the idea was suggested by the senior education department officials when the GSHSEB failed to check repeated incidents of copying and other unfair means despite taking several measures like installing CCTV cameras, preparing 15 sets of question papers and even penalising the teachers, if found guilty.

More than the students, the board has been blaming the schools for such cases in order to inflate their overall result and thus receive more grant from the government. According to the education department’s revised rules, grants to schools are based on their Class X board results.

The Class X exam pattern of all subjects was changed to 50:50 objective and subjective in 2011. This was done as per the recommendations of a committee, led by former chief secretary Sudhir Mankad, in a bid to ease stress among students. However, the report had stated that the multiple choice questions should be application-based and have quality to check understanding of concepts among the students.

In 2015 when the GSHSEB set maths paper on this formula, it faced flak for setting lengthy question papers.

Source : Indian Express