CHENNAI/KRISHNAGIRI: The government deciding to use quarterly and half-yearly examination marks to evaluate Class-X students has opened a Pandora’s Box.
On Thursday, a day after the government asked for answer sheets of the term exams to be submitted, a government school in Krishnagiri is alleged to have asked its students to submit fresh scripts, after rewriting them to score better marks.
The school head first denied the allegations outright, and later said she was unaware of the event.
“Someone would have done it, but I am unaware of such an incident. I didn’t receive any complaints from students and so no inquiry has been initiated,” said Valarmathi, the head of the school.
The Chief Educational Officer has been asked to initiate a probe into the incident by the district collector.
The issue came to light after an audio clip of a teacher instructing students to rewrite the answers went viral. The clip is initially believed to have been shared on a group called ‘Govt Girls’.
“Students must write answers in a ruled paper for English and Tamil subjects without mentioning a date. Unruled paper must be used for Maths, Science and Social Science. After this, it should be submitted within a day or two in the school,” the teacher allegedly said in the audio clip.
“Many students have failed in Class X quarterly and half-yearly examination. But, they have secured more than 90 marks in the revision test. Hence, after obtaining permission from the ‘madam’, this was allowed and students should do it,” the teacher is heard saying in the clip.
On Thursday morning, the teacher sent another message that read, “Due to many Covid cases in Krishnagiri district, students and parents need not come to school. Will be informed later.”
There are rumours and fears that private schools might also be indulging in such practices in exchange for money paid by parents.
“Many private school students may not be able to submit their scripts as they return it to students. They don’t keep a copy of it. Hence, it’s impossible to collate them at this point,” says the principal of a private school.
The DGE therefore gave a relaxation and said that if some schools are unable to submit the answer scripts, they can submit an explanation and submit only the progress report and mark register.
This has given rise to fears that schools may inflate marks for students wanting to choose specific groups.Government schools, however, cannot do this.
“We update the marks of every internal test or exam on the Educational Management Information System (EMIS) periodically. So even if a student has failed an assessment, we have already updated the scores. But private schools can change these scores to save their reputation,” said PK Ilamaran, the leader of the Tamil Nadu Government School Teachers Association.
KR Nandhakumar, general secretary of a private schools association says it is very difficult to inspect and ensure that every school is honest.
“If people are concerned about malpractice, the government should introduce a grading system with just say ABCD. This will simplify it for both private and government school students,” he said.
PB Prince Gajendra Babu, general secretary, State Platform for Common School System said that a new curriculum was introduced only in the 2019-20 academic year making it hard for students to get accustomed to in the internal examinations.
“The government did not issue blueprint for the internal exams and teachers themselves were not well-versed with the new curriculum when these exams were conducted. It is not fair to score students based on these exams,” he said.
Panel will look into syllabus trimming: Sengottaiyan
School Education Minister KA Sengottaiyan on Thursday tweeted that an 18-member committee has been set up to look into the trimming of syllabus for the academic year 2020-21.
The year has been cut short owing to the Covid-19 lockdown, making it hard for teachers to complete the entire syllabus.
The department had therefore said that the syllabus will be trimmed and teachers will be informed on which portion to skip.