VIJAYAWADA: Stating that the government is yet to take a call on whether to award grade or marks to SSC students, Education Minister Audimulapu Suresh said the students will be promoted on the basis of scores in formative assessment and comprehensive continuous evaluation. Speaking to The New Indian Express on Friday, the minister said: “All schools have four stages of formative assessment and two stages of comprehensive continuous evaluation. As all the four stages of the former and one stage of the latter are completed, the students will be promoted on the basis of these five tests. However, we are yet to decide whether to score them according to marks or grades. Once the results are out, the students can go ahead with the regular procedure of admissions for higher education.”
Recently, the education minister had announced cancellation of Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations following the requests of several groups, including parents’ associations. The decision is taken considering the risks to students’ health amid the rising Covid-19 cases, Suresh had said.
On how the current situation will affect the youths, he observed, “This year, there are several challenges that the entire country is facing, especially in the field of education. The Centre had also suggested cancelling examinations. We are trying our best to do justice to the students.”
However, some experts raised concerns on passing the students solely on the basis of internal assessment marks as they suspected that doing so might lead to steep rise in dropout rate over the immediate two academic years. Professor Narava Prakasa Rao, Right To Education Forum state convener, observed that a common grading system followed by an entrance exam for every field of education would be better.
“Considering the pandemic, cancellation of examinations was a must to prevent spread of the virus. But promoting students on the basis of internal assessments could lead to huge increase in the dropout rate over the next two academic years. Especially, there might be a significant increase in dropout rate among girls as many still are not okay with their daughters studying beyond school. The government must see the bigger picture. In my view, a common grading system followed by an entrance exam for each field will be a better approach,” he noted.
Infrastructure to be upgraded in all IIITs, assures minister
Kadapa: Education Minister and district in-charge minister Audimulapu Suresh said that the government will soon upgrade the infrastructure in all IIITs in the state. On Friday, the Education minister, along with Government Whip K Srinivasulu, District Collector C Harikiran, MP YS Avinash Reddy and PADA OSD Anil Kumar Reddy, inspected the newlyconstructed engineering department and classrooms at IIIT-Idupalapaya. They also visited the site where YSR Auditorium is expected to come up at a cost of Rs 40 crore. The statue of former chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy would also be installed at the site.