CBSE raises concern over NEP's multiple exams plan

NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has raised concern over logistics of conducting multiple board exams in a year and the feasibility of students taking at least 24 subject board examinations in secondary school. The board expressed it's reservations in its feedback to the draft National Education Policy (NEP) 2019.
Twenty expert groups are deliberating on the two lakh suggestions the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) has received from various stakeholders, including state governments.The final document on the National Education Policy (NEP) 2019 is likely to be ready by October 2019.
In the section on "Restructuring of Board Examinations," the draft NEP stated that these examinations "will be significantly restructured to test only core concepts, skills, and higher order capacities in a range of required subjects and a range of elective subjects of the student's choice." It further suggested that "students will be expected to take a total of at least 24 subject Board Examinations, or on average three a semester, and these examinations would be in lieu of in school final examinations so as not to be any additional burden on students or teachers."

CBSE and a few states has also raised concern over the semester system. According to an MHRD source, the board takes six to eight months to prepare the question papers for its annual board exams and the complete process needs three months and therefore, assessing students in 16 subjects internally and conducting the board exam multiple times won't be feasible.
Among other issues raised by different quarters is lack of clarity in the provisions on early childhood education. Experts also questioned the proposal where "multiple public schools will be brought together in an organisational and administrative unit called the school complex" The idea behind this is to create school complexes which share teachers, counsellors and special educators. However, experts are of the view that since these schools are located at distances, the idea of sharing teachers is not feasible.
Tamil Nadu voiced strong disagreement on the three-language policy.
Speaking to TOI, HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal said that the expert groups are completing the deliberations on the suggestions and incorporating the changes. "We are hopeful that the policy will be ready by October 2019," said Pokhriyal.