NE EDUCATION BUREAU
CHENNAI, FEB 3
Public examinations to be conducted for the children of Classes V and VII are introduced from this year is maintly to have a uniform and fair assessment of learning outcomes of students, said Commissioner of School Education Sigy Thomas Vaidhyan here on Monday.
In a statement issued here, the Commissioner appeals the parents not panic, the 40 marks for formative assessment of students will continue to happen at the school level, and only the remaining 60 marks of summative assessment will be done through a common question paper.
She said that conducting public examinations for summative assessments by the Directorate of Government Examinations (DGE) was to improve the quality of question papers and to bring uniformity and fairness in assessing the learning capacity of the children.
The Commissioner said that the question papers will be set at the State-level, while the evaluation of answer papers will be held at the level of Cluster Resource Centres (CRCs) within the districts.
The answer papers will be exchanged between schools situated within the CRC and evaluated mark sheets will be sent to respective schools, she added.
Since 2012-13, Tamil Nadu has been following the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) method for students from Class I to Class VIII. This includes 40 marks of formative assessment and 60 marks of summative assessment. While formative assessment is done based on experiments, creating models and unit tests, summative assessment is done through exams conducted at the school, block, or district level.
The Commissioner has issued the statement in the backdrop of opposition against conducting of public examinations for Class V and Class VIII intensified across the state.
State government has taken a decision not to detain any student even if they fail for the first three years after the introduction of public examinations, the statement adds.
