New Amendments In The CBSE Board: A Sign Of Relief

The curriculum of CBSE is the most student-friendly in the country that has been designed to put less pressure on the students. The CBSE books are highly interactive, experiential learning-based, full of interesting fun-filled exercises that make learning possible in a playful way. The process of dispensing knowledge quite efficiently and healthy for children of different learning curves is what CBSE aims for.

Undeniably there has been a loss of instructional hours that has been because of school shutdowns across the globe; hence it has been decided to conduct the exams with a syllabus cut. 

A welcome move

It is a welcome decision, keeping the ongoing pandemic in mind and the health safety of students and teachers, the syllabus mapping that has been done by the CBSE is more understanding based. To some extent, students will miss out on hands-on experience and experiments though a few schools are holding laboratory classes online but conducting the experiments in an online mode is different, moreover, the portion is easier.

Enhance conceptual learning

The syllabus carved out for the CBSE Board exams will enhance conceptual learning. The MCQs will be concept based where the child will need to have clarity over the basics. NCERT Alternative Academic Calendar has made sure that there are no earning losses and the learning outcome remains intact. 

Improvement exams 

As per CBSE, students can appear again to improve their performance in one Subject as a Compartmental examination right after the main exam get over and the better marks would be published in the mark sheet in the same session. 

In alignment with NEP 2020, this decision will help the students to get an opportunity to upgrade their marks. I certainly feel that this is a welcome move by the CBSE, and it will benefit the students as they will not need to wait for the next batch of students to give the exam to get the results.

But for the students who want to take a re-test of more than one subject the earlier rule will comply which means they will have to wait for the next batch to give the exams, I feel this also is a fair decision taken by the CBSE as it will not hamper the sanctity of the result.

Board exam vs competitive exams

The change in syllabus for Xth and XIIth with certain portions removed from the syllabus can be learnt but will not be assessed. A scientifically designed competition-oriented syllabus has given a momentary relief for students as they will have to study a lesser syllabus for class examinations and subsequent Board examinations. However, the syllabus for competitive exams still stands the same without any modification, which the student will have to burn the midnight oil to be able to cover all the concepts for the competitive examinations.

This Year’s Board examination will be historic as the examinees will be taking the exams without attending physical classes thus this decision will also help the students to reduce stress and they will be emotionally balanced and perform well in the Board examination.

CBSE has made amendments to offer a lot of flexibility for the students to pursue their subjects of interest. At each milestone, students have been given choice to select to study an area of interest. With the ongoing pandemic focusing on moving forward with self-confidence, keeping faith in the system, students must strive to work harder instead of allowing complacency to take over.

Silpi Sahoo

Guest Author The author is Co-Founder & Chairperson, Sai International Education Group