Review of SSLC Exam Pattern

Expert panel to review SSLC exam pattern
(Source from Hindu News)

Bangalore: Tenth standard students studying under the Karnataka State syllabus may have to answer a different pattern of questions from the next academic year.

The Government has given the go-ahead for appointing a panel of experts to review the examination pattern of the Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC).

However, the examinations for this academic year, starting on March 31, will stick to the prevailing pattern.

The existing system, with a heavy emphasis on multiple-choice and short-answer questions, has come in for criticism from several quarters.

“The argument is that it orients students towards rote learning rather than reasoning. It is felt that students are increasingly becoming incapable of writing essays and analytical answers,” said Commissioner of Public Instruction Kumar Naik.
Weightage

The panel is expected to go into the question of whether the weightage given multiple-choice questions in the present pattern is warranted or needs to be changed.

It was in the year 2006 that the system with an emphasis on multiple-choice questions was introduced.

The paper was divided into Section A and Section B, with Section A dedicated to multiple choice questions.

The circular issued by the Karnataka Secondary Education Board on September 15, 2005, insisted that answers in Section B too should be to the point and “students should desist from writing unnecessarily long-winding answers with inconsequential details”.

The recent thinking on the examination system, however, seems to be more in favour of testing a student’s analytical skills.

It may noted here that the Central Board of Secondary Education has announced its decision to dedicate 20 per cent of the questions to testing the student’s critical thinking skills rather than rote learning from the coming examinations for 10th and 12th standards.

CBSE chairman Ashok Ganguly recently announced that there would be a paradigm shift in the CBSE from More of The Same (MOTS) system based on repetition and stereotypes to Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) with emphasis on interpretation and synthesis of knowledge.