CBSE X: Many questions out of syllabus in Kannada paper

In what they have claimed is sheer irresponsibility by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), students who wrote the second language Kannada paper on Saturday have said that several questions were out of syllabus.

The students and parent community have erupted in protest on the social media platform against the CBSE.

Students said that several questions were completely out of context and there was no mention about any of those incidents or concepts in the textbooks prescribed to them. There is, however, uncertainty over the number of marks. While a few parents have claimed that questions adding up to a score of 21 marks is incorrect, a few others have said that it is about 15 marks.

Parents in Bengaluru have approached school managements to write to the Board regarding the issue. They have also said that the CBSE must give grace marks to all these questions.

Ramesh (name changed) one of the parents who spoke to DH said, "My son took the examination in Kendriya Vidyalaya. When these students came out of the hall, they were in shock. Several questions were irrelevant and there was no mention about these in the textbooks. Out of 80 marks, 21 marks were incorrect questions."

In a few schools, when students were caught in a state of panic invigilators comforted them asking them to attempt the other questions and assured that grace marks would be given if their concerns were genuine.

Ranjith, one of the students said that a descriptive question which was the third question in the seventh main was about Basavanna's vachanas. However, there was no mention of Basvanna in the textbook.

A few parents also said that these questions were similar to what was given in the previous years. "It seems like these questions have appeared from the old syllabus," said another parent.

Six multiple choice questions and several descriptive questions were out of syllabus, one of the parents said.

Meanwhile, a tweet in which the union minister for human resource development was tagged read: "Dear @PrakashJavdekar ji, today CBSE 10th std #Kannada exams were conducted. Seems some questions totalling 15 marks were from out of the syllabus. Students were asked to write the question numbers & leave the answer blank. Students were told they will get 15 marks for these questions."

The CBSE is yet to respond to these allegations