No orders yet on evaluation of Class VIII answer sheets

SOLAN: With staff of various government schools receiving no directions to evaluate the answer sheets of Class VIII, the examinations of which was held in December last year by various schools, students of such school have now been provisionally admitted to Class IX.

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, March 1

With staff of various government schools receiving no directions to evaluate the answer sheets of Class VIII, the examinations of which was held in December last year by various schools, students of such school have now been provisionally admitted to Class IX.

The evaluation work had begun soon after the examination was conducted in December, it could not be completed due to winter vacation in schools on December 31.

The process was supposed to begin after the reopening of schools. Teachers had not been assigned evaluation work in the District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETs) of respective districts by the Directorate of Elementary Education till on Thursday.

The examinations failed to serve the purpose as the state government followed a policy of zero retention whereby all students were to be promoted to Class IX. Keeping this in mind all government schools had given provisional admission to all students and the declaration of the results would make no difference.

It is worth mentioning that the Directorate of Elementary Education had adopted this new methodology to get the answer sheets evaluated at the DIETs of respective districts to give students a feel of the board examinations and to ensure that students did not take these lightly. It was also supposed to prepare students to face board examinations in higher classes.

Director Elementary Education was not available for comments and other officials in the directorate too had little information on this matter.

The schools were following a system of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) whereby a student was evaluated for nine subjects every month by teachers who granted them up to 5 marks for each subject.

The final result was, therefore, depended on 370 marks comprising CCE score and the final written examination comprising 800 marks.

The result could only be declared after a school added both the scores and therefore till the marks of written examinations were evaluated and sent to the respective schools by the DIETs, the final result could not be declared.

Teachers in various schools said provisional admissions to Class IX had been made as the new academic session had begun on February 9.

There was no information about the pending evaluation work, they added.