Skip to main content

CBSE’s Paradoxes




“Formative Assessment is a tool used by the teacher to continuously monitor student progress in a non threatening, supportive environment,” says CBSE’s manual on CCE (Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation – which is understood by many students as ‘Continuous and Carefree Entertainment). 

“Non-threatening and supportive” – that’s what the assessment is supposed to be when a teacher does it in the class.  What about the assessment carried out by the Board at the end of the session?

See the remark written by one of the CBSE students on the Board’s complaint board after yesterday’s math exam of class 12:

MATHEMATICS WAS F**K**G TOUGH
THE 2013 CBSE EXAM WAS F**K**G TOUGH TO WRITE!! :(
I DINT EXPECT THIS TPYE OF MATHEMATICS PAPER EVER :(
CBSE IS HARDCORE i should have tried some thing else,, wasted 2 years of my high schools in CBSE :(

It is written by a student who calls him-/herself maha dewayz.

There are quite a few other students too who have complained against the math paper though not in maha dewayz’s ‘CCE’ phraseology.  It seems the math paper in the Chennai region did not follow the normal CBSE pattern. 

The usual CBSE pattern is “non-threatening and supportive” to students.  In fact, one won’t find anywhere in the world a Board of Exams that’s more student-friendly than CBSE.  So what happened this time with the math paper in Chennai region?

A very close relative of mine who is a math teacher in a CBSE school in Kerala rang me up after the math exam was over to ask me whether the Delhi students too found it as tough as their Chennai counterparts did.  I asked the math teacher of my school who said it was quite “non-threatening and supportive” except for the value-based question whose phraseology was very misleading.  Of course, students like maha dewayz are likely to find value-based phraseology beyond their vocab. 

I wonder why CBSE did not follow with the math paper what they are asking their teachers to do with the assessments: be “non-threatening and supportive”?  My relative-teacher says that the umpteen private engineering colleges in the South might have bribed CBSE to renege on their exhortation to teachers about threats and supports so that the students won’t qualify for the engineering entrance tests which in turn would ensure a good rush to the private colleges.  I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true though I wouldn’t dare to make such an allegation.  But I think that values exist only as a 5-mark question in the exams in the academic world of CCE.

That’s one of the many paradoxes that peep out of the CCE edifice cocking a snook at people who still (shamelessly) possess sensibilities that may be too delicate for the world in which only one value really exists except in the value-based questions of CBSE.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. Woman'n'BeyondMarch 21, 2013 at 7:22 PM

    Rights, values now exist only on papers. How can we blame younger generations. They are getting what we are serving them in practice.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 21, 2013 at 7:42 PM

      I'm not blaming anyone, Meenakshi. Just pointing out certain things, which i find paradoxical and even amusing.

      Delete
  2. mandakolathurMarch 21, 2013 at 8:26 PM

    So, what you are saying is the exams may have been made tough enough to weed-in (???) students who would perform badly enough to warrant only a private engineering college.

    Am I right in my understanding? I am not at all sure.

    RE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 22, 2013 at 7:02 AM

      Even I am not sure what and why CBSE does certain things. The suspicion that CBSE may have the motive of helping private engg colleges has been voiced by many people, not just by me - in fact, I merely borrowed it from others.

      This post was written with a lot of cynicism in the ink. So you should have been the first one to grasp it :)

      Delete
  3. AnonymousMarch 22, 2013 at 11:50 AM

    Well, for a student like maha dewayz, I suppose every paper is tough. There are spelling mistakes in his complaint. I believe if you prepare enough, u can do well, questions are never like out-of-the-world.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 22, 2013 at 12:14 PM

      Yes, finally I have somebody who seems to think like me in this regard. The very simple truth is that if a student wants to study nothing will be insurmountable. Give me students who want to study and I will work miracles. Even God won't be able to save those who don't make the least effort to save themselves.

      Delete
  4. TheYoungBigmouth.comMarch 22, 2013 at 2:44 PM

    The one with the loudest voice is not always right. CBSE has been botching up for years, students have now more access to raise their voices. But policy makers need to look for long term solutions. Good or bad, our government has not woken up to social media feedback yet.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 22, 2013 at 4:38 PM

      The policies which we are following right now in the name of CCE are absurd. They shift the entire onus to the teachers. Students have little to do.

      But i didn't understand your first statement.

      Delete
  5. The MukhtiarsMarch 22, 2013 at 5:20 PM

    interesting read

    ReplyDelete
  6. Vishal RathodMarch 23, 2013 at 10:45 AM

    I don't know what to comment on this but yaa once in my engineering the same thing happened . Every question was out if syllabus and person who just by attempting them , even though the answer was wrong , got the marks.

    Younger generation is too forward to accept these kind of errors in a decent way .

    Nice Information for new bloggers . Thanks for sharing

    Travel India

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 23, 2013 at 11:04 AM

      I know my cynicism must have confused you. Cynicism comes in when the people who are responsible for the pathetic state of affairs refuse to do anything meaningful... The students are also not innocent these days. The complaint I've quoted is representative of their attitude...

      Delete
  7. UnknownMarch 28, 2013 at 3:46 PM

    Fist and foremost, I never believe that anything in CBSe can be "out-of-sylabus".
    Mathematics is supposed to be a tool to slve problems, so if you have expertise with the tool you can for sure solve the problem.
    I find CBSE getting easier day by day and at the same time I find the quality of books/material going down in the name of getting student friendly.
    When I look at what people study today in class5 and compare it with my own time, these people are studying nothing.
    To top it all the "everybody should pass to avoid suicide" excuse has just killed it.
    Why not make students who will not suicide just because they got 9/10 rather than passing everyone.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Topper LearningJune 24, 2013 at 10:48 AM

    It is really a great idea to use Formative Assessment as a tool by the teacher to continuously monitor student progress in a non threatening and supportive environment.

    CBSE Maths

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownFebruary 25, 2014 at 3:35 PM

    Behind every successful student their is a good facilitator and his hard work.Teacher helps to make information easily available to them. CBSE decided to conducted Training programs for teachers to upgrade the quality education in schools in India. CCE Teacher training

    ReplyDelete
  10. Suresh.gOctober 13, 2020 at 2:37 PM

    Thanks for the informative article! waiting for your next post.- schools near my location.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...
31 comments
Read more

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...
10 comments
Read more

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...
4 comments
Read more

Empuraan and Ramayana

Maggie and I will be watching the Malayalam movie Empuraan tomorrow. The tickets are booked. The movie has created a lot of controversy in Kerala and the director has decided to impose no less than 17 censors on it himself. I want to watch it before the jingoistic scissors find its way to the movie. It is surprising that the people of Kerala took such exception to this movie when the same people had no problem with the utterly malicious and mendacious movie The Kerala Story (2023). [My post on that movie, which I didn’t watch, is here .] Empuraan is based partly on the Gujarat riots of 2002. The riots were real and the BJP’s role in it (Mr Modi’s, in fact) is well-known. So, Empuraan isn’t giving the audience any falsehood as The Kerala Story did. Moreover, The Kerala Story maligned the people of Kerala while Empuraan is about something that happened in the faraway Gujarat quite long ago. Why are the people of Kerala then upset with Empuraan ? Because it tells the truth, M...
13 comments
Read more

Empuraan – Review

Revenge is an ancient theme in human narratives. Give a moral rationale for the revenge and make the antagonist look monstrously evil, then you have the material for a good work of art. Add to that some spices from contemporary politics and the recipe is quite right for a hit movie. This is what you get in the Malayalam movie, Empuraan , which is running full houses now despite the trenchant opposition to it from the emergent Hindutva forces in the state. First of all, I fail to understand why so much brouhaha was hollered by the Hindutvans [let me coin that word for sheer convenience] who managed to get some 3 minutes censored from the 3-hour movie. The movie doesn’t make any explicit mention of any of the existing Hindutva political parties or other organisations. On the other hand, Allahu Akbar is shouted menacingly by Islamic terrorists, albeit towards the end. True, the movie begins with an implicit reference to what happened in Gujarat in 2002 after the Godhra train burnin...
8 comments
Read more