States to be enabled to abolish Class 10 boards: Sibal

NEW DELHI - Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal Saturday said the implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act will pave the way for state education boards replacing the Class 10 board exams with a grading system.

“Under the RTE, elementary education until Class 8 is under comprehensive and continuous evaluation. Once you have that system until class 8, is no point in changing over to an exam system in Class 10,” Sibal said in an interview to the CNN-IBN news channel.

The act pitches for classroom assessment of students instead of an annual exam. The Central Board of Secondary Education introduced a grading system for this year’s Class 10 board exams and will make the exam optional from next year.

“It’s just a matter of time that states will come on board and remove Class 10 exams on their own and move towards the grading system,” Sibal said.

Noting that the states have been cooperative in preparing a roadmap for the act, Sibal said a decision on its implementation will be taken very soon.

“The states have been cooperative in all our decisions and hopefully, in the committee meeting next month, we will take decisions with unanimity,” Sibal said.

The major changes being introduced in school education include a uniform syllabus for all central and state boards from next year. The human resource development ministry is also pitching for a single national-level entrance test for Class 12 students from science and commerce streams applying for undergraduate courses from 2013.

Sounding confident on the uniform curriculum, Sibal said that more discussion was needed before introducing the single national-level test.

“Well again, that (uniform curriculum) is something that has been unanimously decided by Council of Boards of School Education in India (COBSE). Let’s now see if we are able to hold an all-India examination in 2013. That is a matter that will be discussed at length,” he said.

COBSE is the apex body of all central and state education boards. The decision to introduce a uniform curriculum for all education boards was announced by Sibal in February.