Centralised annual exams for Karnataka’s Classes 9 and 11 students soon

Through this ‘centralised examination’ reform, the education department aims to bridge the learning gaps among high school students. However, similar to classes 5 and 8, the annual examination of 9 and 11, will have a ‘no detention policy’, if the student does not get the required passing mark.

Confirming the plan on this new examination reform to The Indian Express, Ritesh Kumar Singh, principal secretary of the school education department said, “First of all this is not a board examination. The plan to introduce centralised examination for classes 9 and 11 is one of the many examination reforms being discussed in the interest of the students. This proposal is well thought out, student-friendly, and learning outcome friendly. This is not to overburden the students with examinations but to improve their learning outcomes so that he/she can face board examinations with confidence. We felt the summative assessment at the school level is not delivering the required results and not improving the learning outcome of students significantly. This reform may at least improve their performance in a graded manner.”

Allaying fears of ‘detaining students’, Singh said, “In the case of class 5 and 8 examination, we have submitted in the Karnataka High Court that we would not detain the students. The same applies to this examination. The only difference here is, the question paper comes from the board. Since this is also the first time, we still don’t have any benchmark to decide the difficulty level of the question paper. We have time and we can introduce it in this academic year. But no substantial decision has been taken yet.”

Officials in the school education department told The Indian Express that the question paper set by the board for class 9 and 11 will be more competency based and will involve application of mind. An education official said, “At the school level the question papers are prepared and the evaluation is done liberally. In some cases, local education authorities set the question paper and send the same to different taluks in different districts. We want to curb this. Which is why we want to standardise the question paper and bring in uniformity with the proposal of centralised annual examination in classes 9 and 11. However, the printing, distribution, and evaluation of papers will happen at the school and taluk level.”

As part of the examination reforms, Karnataka on July 10 ordered to consider 20 marks as internal for examination in subjects not having a practical examination of first and second PU (pre-university) from the academic year 2023-24. With this, the evaluation for subjects without practicals will be based on 20 marks internal and 80 marks theoretical.

It can also be recalled that, last academic year (2022-23) the school education department introduced an annual examination for classes 5 and 8, after which landed the government in troubled waters. Private school management associations had filed a petition in the Karnataka High Court seeking to quash the government order that mandated exams for classes 5 and 8, citing that it would pressurise and cause tension among students.

However, in March 2022 the division bench consisting of Justice G Narendar and Justice Ashok Kinagi allowed the government to conduct board exams for class 5 and 8 students studying the state board syllabus. The court also directed the government to confidentially inform the student who has failed and to give the student the necessary training and remedial classes to improve the learning skills, without detaining him/her. The court also directed the examination should contain questions within the syllabus and not outside the syllabus. Further, when the petitioners moved to the Supreme Court on March 27, the apex court dismissed the petition and allowed the state to conduct the examination.