JOIN USPanel for raising standard of Class XII exams
A government-appointed panel has favoured setting Class XII board exam questions in Science and Mathematics that require higher thinking and analytical skills to answer.
In its report to the Human Resource Development Ministry, the panel recommended uniformity in the question pattern of school boards across the country with equal distribution of questions and their marks in three different categories— very short answer type, short answer type and long answer (descriptive) type.
All the very short answer type questions need not be in multiple-choice question (MCQ) format. Some of the questions in this category may require a student to write the correct answer, instead of choosing one from the four choices as given in MCQ pattern.
“The intent behind the committee’s recommendations is not only to bring in uniformity in the question pattern but also to keep the focus on assessment of students learning outcomes through questions requiring high order thinking and analytical skills. Random guessing may help a student answer some of the questions asked in the MCQ pattern and secure marks,” official sources told Deccan Herald. The report is being examined by the HRD Ministry.
The committee, while examining the issue, observed huge variation in the pattern of questions asked in Class XII board exams and the marks allotted to them.No uniformity
“The majority of the questions asked by some of the boards are MCQ type, while others focus on short answer type and long answer type questions. There is no uniformity in the pattern and design of the questions being asked in class XII board,” sources who are privy to the finding of the committee said.
The Ministry had set up the panel comprising representatives of various state boards to make recommendations on designing of a common question pattern for Class XII board examinations after a meeting of 37 school boards was held in October last year.
The meeting was convened by the HRD Ministry primarily to discuss how to bring uniformity in the pattern and design in questions of Class XII board as the varied systems being followed by different boards were creating problems in normalisation of board scores of students appearing in Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) conducted for admissions to premier technical institutes.
Another reason for calling the meeting was the trend of students securing excessively high grades in class XII board examinations, leading best of the universities in country to set an extremely high cut off marks for admissions to undergraduate programmes.