TIRUCHY: A study conducted by a Chennai-based educational organisation in schools across the country on the awareness among teachers about the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) has revealed that only two per cent of teachers were aware of the actual purpose of conducting such assessments.
“The purpose of assessment should be to help children learn, and not to judge their abilities. Since students are being enrolled for learning, classrooms should turn into think-rooms, thus encouraging the children to come up with creative ideas,” Ganesh Subramanian, Director, Chrysalis, said here on Wednesday.
Chrysalis, being an empanelled member of the academics department of the CBSE, will submit to the Centre an alternative assessment methodology promulgated by them as a suggestion to bring in change in the education system by the first quarter of 2017.
The CCE system was introduced in the CBSE education by 2009, with an objective to reduce stress level of students. The study conducted by Chrysalis across 123 schools, including CBSE, matriculation and government schools, found that only two per cent teachers surveyed had proper understanding of the purpose of assessments and 98 per cent had wrong perceptions.
The three-year survey, conducted after receiving inputs from 9,361 parents from across the country, revealed that a majority of teachers, instead of incorporating innovative ideas to help students learn, have been keen on grading students. The research conducted by hosting interviews and group discussions with teachers also revealed that the CCE methodology, which was brought in with an objective to bring down the number of tests, was found to be a methodology where more number of tests were conducted, thus failing the very purpose.
“Teachers should understand the basic difference between a test and an assessment. By doing so, the teaching-learning process can be simplified for better results,” said Sundar Raj, head, Corporate Communication, Chrysalis.
It was found that 71 per cent of the surveyed teachers had not perceived the concept of formative assessment (bringing in changes in the way of teaching, through observation in classrooms) to improve the learning process.
What is CCE
Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) is child-centric and views each learner as unique
It replaces exam-centric approach from evaluation system and employs a variety of assessment tools to gauge the progress in all academic subjects
Two different types of tests — formative and summative — are conducted
Formative tests will comprise the student’s work at class and home, performance in oral tests and quizzes and the quality of the projects or assignments submitted by the child
Formative tests will be conducted four times in an academic session. They carry 40 per cent weightage for the aggregate
The summative assessment is a three-hour long written test conducted twice a year