BANGALORE: If everything goes according to the plan, students taking SSLC exams next year will have to deal more with the descriptive type questions than objective ones.
The Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board is mulling over changing the SSLC exam pattern and have 70 per cent of the total marks for descriptive type and remaining 30 per cent for multiple choice questions. At present, students are following the p a t t e r n where 60 per cent of questions constitute multiple choice (objective type) and 40 per cent descriptive type in SSLC. This pattern was introduced during the academic year 2005-06.
The state government had asked New Delhi-based Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), to study the present exam pattern. CESS conducted workshops in Bangalore, Mysore and Dharwad in which parents, students, teachers, bureaucrats and education experts gave their opinions.
Sources from CESS said most of them wanted the multiple choice questions to be scrapped. CESS will submit a report to the state government on July 13.
Reason for change
Ever since the 60:40 pattern (multiple choice: descriptive type) was introduced in SSLC, there was an improvement in the SSLC results. However, students who got used to answering multiple choice questions in SSLC, found it difficult to adapt to writing lengthy answers in second PU exams.
The 60:40 pattern for SSLC was introduced in 2006, which increased the pass percentage from 62.46 in 2005 to 70.91 in 2006. But the pass percentage in the II PU exams of the same batch, in 2008, plummeted to 41.31 from 50.64 in 2007.
‘PU Board to be strengthened’
The government is apprised of the need for strengthening the Pre University Board and improve its administration, Minister Kageri said at the Legislative Council on Friday. In the particular case of evaluation of answer scripts strict rules are laid down for the valuators, action has been initiated against 30 lecturers, he said. Kageri noted that the problem was because other than the Deputy Directors of Public Instruction there was nobody to take care of the affairs of the PU Board at the district centres.