Seventeen states, including Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala and Uttarakhand, have agreed to discontinue with the marks “moderation” policy in Class 12 board exams, The Indian Express reported, quoting unidentified officials.
According to the policy, students are usually given extra or “grace marks” for attempting tough questions in examinations. However, these inflated scores force colleges to set their cut-off marks at 100%.
School Education Secretary Anil Swarup on October 6 had written to the state boards asking them to avoid “spiking” marks. Heads of state boards have responded saying either they do not resort to “grace marks”, or are willing to reconsider the policy, an unidentified official told The Indian Express. States like West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have not yet responded to the Centre.
On Wednesday, Swarup on Twitter said, “High time this farce relating to irrational ‘spiking’ of marks is stopped. Glad that there is a consensus amongst the states to stop this practice.”
However, the state boards are free to decide whether or not they want to continue with the moderation policy.
In April, the Central Board of Secondary Education had announced to scrap the policy allowing up to 15% extra marks for students attempting difficult questions. However, in May, the Delhi High Court had reversed the decision for the students who appeared in the Class 12 board examinations in 2017.
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