The Supreme Court of India today, June 22, while hearing the matter on uniform evaluation criteria across state boards including - Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Council For the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) - said that they being autonomous councils cannot arrive at a single policy to derive the results of the cancelled board exams. Both the boards have cancelled their Class 12 exams considering the safety of the students.
“Regarding ICSE, CBSE not having a uniform policy. ICSE is an independent body and it is not possible to synchronize and have a uniform policy along with the states too. Each of this board is autonomous and the 32 state boards too,” the Attorney General in the Supreme Court said today.
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The Class 12 exams for the students of CBSE and ISC and their affiliated schools were scheduled to start on May 4.
Here's a timeline of what happened over the past few months
June 22: A Division Bench of Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice Dinesh Maheshwari while hearing the matter against cancelling the Class 12 CBSE board exams, rejected it saying that the formulation of scheme was taken with holistic approach to ensure no candidate is prejudiced. Citing that the evaluation criteria to assess the students is "fair and reasonable", the top court added there is no reason to interfere with the CBSE and CISCE schemes. The top court has also rejected the plea seeking cancellation of compartment exams.
June 21: The Supreme Court was told by both CBSE and CISCE that they have amended their respective evaluation scheme to assess Class 12 students and incorporated a dispute resolution mechanism for the candidates who have any objections.
With regard to private or second chance compartment candidates, the CBSE said that their examinations shall be conducted in such a manner so that they will fall within the assessment policy for the academic year 2019-2020 as approved by the top court last year and, their results shall be declared in accordance with the said assessment policy.
The board on June 21 has also said that it will conduct the optional exams for the students not satisfied with the results obtained by evaluation criteria between August 15 and September 15. CBSE will open the application window to register for the optional exams after the Class 12th results are declared.
With regard to the improvement examination, the CISCE said that candidates who are not satisfied with the assessment scheme will have the option to appear in the written examination in one or more subject(s)/paper(s) which shall be conducted by the CISCE subsequently.
June 17: Both the boards presented the evaluation criteria to assess the students of the cancelled board exams on June 17.
For CBSE students, 30 per cent weightage will be given to the best three performing subjects in the Class 10 CBSE board exams, 30 per cent to Class 11 final exam and 40 per cent to Class 12 unit test, mid-term or pre-board exams depending on what the school has conducted.
On similar lines, the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) the “formula" to compute the ISC marks includes marks secured in Class 10 board exams, project, practical work in subjects, best marks obtained in school exams in Classes 11 and 12, and best performance of the school itself in the last six years.
June 15: The CBSE committee formed to decide evaluation criteria to declare the results of Class 12th students informed that the board will submit its report on June 18.
June 4: The CBSE board established a 13-member panel to determine Class 12 evaluation criteria.
June 3: The Supreme Court of India gave the two national boards two weeks' time to frame alternative assessment criteria to evaluate the students of the cancelled board exams.
June 1: Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a high-level meeting with ministers and education officials and announced the cancellation of CBSE Class 12 exams.
On the same day, the CISCE also announced the cancellation of Class 12 board examinations in view of the Covid situation.
May 23: Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' and other Union ministers met to discuss the issue of pending Class 12 board exams. The CBSE presented two options to states -- both were offline, pen-and-paper exams that would require students to go to schools, their own or other centres. The Union government appeared to have favoured one of these options and not cancellation.
April 20: The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) has cancelled the ICSE (Class 10) and postponed the ISC (Class 12) final exams.
April 14: CBSE cancelled the Class 10th board exams and postponed the Class 12 exams.
