No more marks moderation: HRD tells all boards

Following the CBSE marks moderation fiasco in April this year, all states and boards have been asked to stop spiking marks from the coming session. The decision has been taken by the Inter Boards Group constituted early this year.

All boards including CBSE had in April this year in a meeting with officials from Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) had decided to do away with marks moderation just ahead of the board results. The decision, however, was challenged in court by parents of students taking exam. After the court's decision, CBSE had to follow the marks moderation policy which led to a dealy in publishing the results. Marks moderation is a policy in which boards increase marks upto a certain level to bring all results to a certain level.

Following the fiasco, this time a decision on the issue has been taken in advance. HRD Ministry has on Friday sent a communication to all states and central boards including CBSE and ICSE to do away with the policy of marks moderation. The ministry has, however added that moderation can be done in certain cases.

"Practice of awarding moderation marks should be done away with, except in cases of ambiguity in the question paper, inter-set variation in difficulty level (if multiple sets system exists in the Board) and vagaries in the evaluation process based on statistical analysis. Bunching of marks and their spiking should be completely avoided," the ministry said in its letter.

It added that the practice of giving grace marks should continue to pass borderline cases and the policy should be disclosed on their website.

The weightage of extra-curricular activities should be same across all the Boards. Boards should show performance of students in extra-curricular activities separately on the marks statement rather than adding them in their scholastic performance, the letter said.

Secretary school Education Anil Swarup, in the letter written to all boards has asked them transparent implementation of the policy. "This will help in bringing uniformity in evaluation process, parity of results and improve quality of education with emphasis on learning outcomes," he said in the letter.

All boards have been asked to implement the policy and submit a report in this regard by the end of this month.

Delayed step

All boards had in April this year decided to do away with marks moderation in a meeting with HRD Ministry. 
The process was postponed after facing court challenges from parents and students.