New system gets top marks from schools, parents

CHENNAI: The battle lines drawn between academicians and school authorities over the introduction of the Uniform School Education System this year seems to have been erased with the government’s decision to introduce the Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation System in schools in the State. While academicians hailed the shift from evaluating memory to assessing knowledge as a welcome step, parents and schools appear happy as the stress levels of students would be reduced.Schools also view the decision as an effort to bring other boards on par with that of CBSE , making it a potent way to prevent migration of students to CBSE schools.SS Rajagopalan, a senior educationist, hailed it as a necessary change. “But teachers will have an increased workload since they will now have more ways to evaluate students’ performance.It is important that they are trained to handle the new challenges,” he said. In the 1970s, the state had announced a Comprehensive Internal Assessment Scheme similar to the new CCES and the NCERT was roped in to publish guidelines for the same. The system, unfortunately, was dropped as teachers could not handle the additional burden. “This aspect has to be taken care of this time around,” he cautioned.Dr Vijayan, principal, Zion Matriculation Higher Secondary School, called the move a welcome change in the field of education as it would promote creativity and understanding of subjects. “The education system in the past few decades had not fostered creativity and that was why students had not become great inventors here. By this system, the edge that CBSE schools had over the others in the state was gone and the mass exodus of children from other boards to CBSE was bound to reduce,” he said.Venkattasala Pandian, general secretary of the Association of Matriculation Higher Secondary Schools and their management in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, said this move was an attempt to bring other board schools in the State alongside the CBSE schools.Helena Fernandes, a parent of a class VII student of Don Bosco school, welcomed the decision primarily because it would reduce the stress of students during examinations.“There is too much of stress in obtaining marks and with grades, that burden would ease,” she said.Pramila, a parent of a class VI student in a popular private school in Chennai, too expressed doubt over the abilities of teachers to assess students based on non-written forms like debates and speeches and said they should be trained thoroughly before the new system was introduced.