A little discretion could have saved MHRD from CCES blushes

It is an age of rapid transformation. At least this is the case with the education system in our country. Be it elementary, secondary or higher education, Union HRD ministry is moving ahead with the kind of agility that has never been anticipated before.

Under the stewardship of Mr Kapil Sibal, the HRD ministry has taken some of the bold and pioneering decisions. One of those decisions is the implementation of Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation System (CCES) at school level. The nomenclature is self-explanatory about its nature and purpose.
 
Under CCES schools evaluate progress of the students continuously and in a very comprehensive manner. All the aspects of a student’s development will be covered and not mere subjective knowledge. Both academic and non-academic facets will be taken into account while assessing the progress of the student under formative and cumulative assessment methods.
 
Though every piece of the system sounds perfectly fine tuned, it leaves much to be desired at least in terms of easing pressure on the students. One of the basic reasons behind adopting such a model was to provide the students with an open atmosphere for learning that will bring down stress level on them and enhance the standard of education. But, instead of easing the stress, CCES has burdened them a bit too much. To be precise, students are facing a number of problems due to CCES.
 
The objective behind introducing the new evaluation system was to bring down the stress level by leaving students time for themselves. This very purpose has been defeated by the provision of innumerable tests, assignments, homework, project work and review tests imposed in the name of continues assessment. In some of the schools, there is a provision of at least one review test every day. All these put together leave the situation unchanged.
 
As per the norms of the CCES, schools assign project works to students. These projects need to be completed at home. A lot of emphasis is laid on projects as part of practical learning. But, what happens in reality is that students end up getting their projects being done by their family members. Thus, in any case students do not get to learn anything at all.
 
The CCES lays enormous stress on assessment of the behavioral patterns of students. Such a close study has prompted them to behave in a kind of subjective manner. Though the new provisions lay a lot of significance to non-academic activities and sports, academic facets themselves are so elaborate that they leave them with almost no time to think of anything but academics. There is also a great deal of scope to bring in the realms of individuality while judging the non-pedagogical aspects of the evaluation system.
 
The new evaluation system calls for an all-round development of students. Thus, their activities and behavior beyond the purview of school is bound to play an important role. And, here comes the role of parent-teacher meeting. Sadly, very few schools have been able to organize these meetings regularly, and many have altogether failed to even convene them.       
 
There is a heated debate over the implementation part of the new evaluation system. No doubt, we urgently need to move from the age-old evaluation system practiced in the schools. But, won’t it have been better, had the authorities gone about it in a more systematic manner? 
 
Indeed, it is a welcome sign that HRD ministry has shown its willingness to reform a stagnant education system that has outlived its purpose. But, there was no reason for such haste in taking up the reforms that it should defeat the very purpose for which they were brought about? If the government was so desperate to implement it, the decision could have been taken a few months earlier, i.e. in the beginning of academic session itself. 
 
As for the implementation of this brand new evaluation system, every aspect of school education needs to be worked out. The methods adopted earlier had become monotonous. A pattern of bookish teaching has been prevalent since times immemorial. All these set norms needed to be revamped.
 
There are many issues that need to be resolved in our education system, but it demands proper planning. The whole process of evaluation revolves around two broad areas of scholastic and co-scholastic activities. As long as it is limited to scholastic aspects that mostly adhere to subjective knowledge, it is more or less fine as this is something students and teachers are going through for a very-very long time. But, when it comes to co-scholastic aspects of evaluation the whole process gets a bit tricky both for teachers and students. 
 
The co-scholastic evaluation covers all the aspects of a student’s progress in terms of life skills like thought process, societal and emotional skill base that include their feelings for peer group, teachers, and their emotional charge towards educational environments and society at large. It also makes a note of their scientific aptitude and creative talent. In the light of these issues with which our school teachers are not familiar, it would not be realistic to expect a tidy work right from the word go.   
 
It seems CBSE could not comprehend the gargantuan nature of the task at hand. Getting down to bare statistics would make it easy to understand. There are no less than 11,000 schools affiliated to the board. Teacher count stands at staggering 1.6 lakh.
 
The board’s approach of putting it right from paper to practice seems to have created a sort of panic among the stakeholders. Maybe a different approach that involved a kind of pilot test would have fared better. Teachers, who were initially very happy, developed cold feet as the heat turned on them. For sure, lack of proper training among them made the matters worst.
 
It is not a mean task to train teachers whose number goes in lakhs. In a way, it is not as such a failure of evaluation system. What is lacking on the part of authorities is sheer dearth of groundwork. It is an uphill task to implement it across the system at one go. 
 
Had the HRD ministry been discreet enough to go about it with full preparation, it would not have faced the embarrassment of reviewing it soon after its implementation. The way checks and balances are being introduced in the system to make it function smoothly; it will definitely work in a better way. The increased involvement of parents as well as other stake holders in the whole process will surely have a positive impact. But, these are for sure not the things that could not have been done earlier. But one thing the HRD ministry should bear in mind that the best way to implement this ambitious project is to enforce it in a phased manner.