Two board exams and new rules on scores: The big changes in India's education system, explained

Union Minister for Education, Dharmendra Pradhan on Wednesday announced that the new curriculum framework (NCF) in accordance with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is complete and that textbooks for it will be created for the 2024 academic year. The yearly board exams will undergo a major change as a result of the transformational curriculum. Let’s take a closer look at the major changes. Also read: From pioneering policies to transformative NEP 2020: Tracing evolution of India's school education system Boards exams twice a year The NCF mandates that the board exams be conducted twice a year, with the top result being retained by the student. Instead of months of instruction and memorisation, the board exams will evaluate competency knowledge and achievement. “Board exams will be offered at least twice a year to ensure students have enough time and opportunity to perform well. Students can then appear for a board exam in subjects they have completed and feel ready for. They will also be allowed to retain the best score,” the ministry said. “In due course of time, school boards are to develop capacities to offer ‘on demand’ exams in due course of time. Besides board exam test developers and evaluators, they will have to go through university-certified courses before taking up this work,” it added. This is being done in order to make the board exams “easier” than the present “high stakes” practice and to enable the move towards a system of on demand examinations in the near future as envisioned in the NEP, it added. According to NCF, under the existing board structure, students only get one exam opportunity each year, meaning they cannot take it when they are ready or try again if they don’t pass the first time. The NCF states that the present issues with board exams solely concentrate on students’ “capacity to reproduce learnt facts,” which is not what tests are intended for. “Given that most examinations largely test rote memory, a very narrow range of Competencies are assessed. This gives an incomplete (at best) or incorrect (at worst) picture of student learning,” the NCF read. Instead, it continued, board exams should evaluate students’ mastery of curriculum-required competencies and give a “valid and reliable picture of student performance.” According to the NCF, the board will be in charge of creating and implementing a fair and trustworthy testing procedure and techniques to evaluate competency accomplishments. Also read: NEP is a philosophy, all should embrace it in letter and spirit, says Union Minister More flexibility The Centre announced that textbooks would be created for the 2024 academic year in accordance with the New Education Policy. The Ministry of Education released information about the new curricular structure. It stated that students in classes 11 and 12 must learn two languages, at least one of which must be an Indian language. The new framework also emphasises that the practice of ‘covering’ textbooks in the classroom will be avoided and that textbook costs should be kept as low as possible. According to the revised curriculum framework, classes 11 and 12 students will have more freedom to choose their studies by not being constrained to the arts, sciences, and commerce streams. Also read: Three years of National Education Policy 2020: How DU has re-crafted its curriculum to create future-ready students NEP 2020 After 30 years, a new education policy was introduced in 2020 with the goal of updating India’s academic system to be on level with the academic standards of other countries. The NEP will be established by the Indian government by the year 2040. The main idea of the strategy is to implement each major component one by one up until the desired year. The Ministry of Education stated in 2020 that NEP 2020 was created to bring about significant reforms in school education as well as higher education, including technical education. The NEP 2020 states that the 10+2 framework was replaced by a 5+3+3+4 structure. The earlier years of learning are highlighted in the previous arrangement. Ages 3 to 8, 8 to 11, 11 to 14, and 14 to 18 are covered by the new structure. This structure includes pre-school, three years of Anganwadi and twelve years of formal education. The amended policy is part of the government’s effort to make education accessible to all people. Through this new strategy, almost two crore school pupils would be allowed to return to educational institutions, according to the Times of India. The development of India’s National Book Promotion Policy is one of NEP 2020’s benefits. To better prepare students for potential pandemic scenarios, this strategy expands the promotion of online education. With inputs from agencies