NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has said the abolition of the Class X Boards should not give schools the idea that they can introduce the new CCE scheme according to their whims and fancy. Even as CBSE is thinking of introducing CCE in classes XI and XII, it is also going to introduce a ‘mentoring and monitoring’ mechanism from March this year to maintain uniformity in CCE practices across schools and to check any violations.

Parents have already been complaining about the added burden on their children, saying schools have been giving extra weekly or daily tests, quizzes and project work on the pretext of implementation of CCE, and now CBSE officials too are confirming that they have been getting reports of schools handing out daily tests, experiments and project work ever since the introduction of the new system. CBSE chairman Vineet Joshi said: "Everyday tests and quizzes are against the philosophy of CCE itself. CCE’s purpose is to destress education for children and yet ensure the holistic growth of every child."

Saying that CCE activities should should be confined to the core curriculum and that most activities should be conducted within school hours, Joshi added: "All projects, experiments and activities should happen strictly during school hours, they should not be passed on as homework. CCE is a way of evaluation and that should happen in front of the teacher, in school."

The chairman said CBSE would write to all schools to curtail any practices not prescribed by CCE. "CCE is not implemented by conducting tests every day," said Joshi.
Meanwhile, the Board is planning to train principals, retired principals and educationists on CCE-monitoring tools and is going to introduce the monitoring mechanism across the country from March 2010. According to the mentoring and monitoring mechanism, schools would be clubbed in clusters of 10 and two to three current and former principals or educationists would be made responsible for the monitoring of each cluster and making random checks.

"This is not ‘inspector raj’ but the trained inspectors will conduct random surveys, interact with students and parents and will be responsible for ensuring that no biases creep into the system . CCE has been developed to help children and if the reverse happens, that means the system has failed. Moreover this mechanism will help ensure uniformity in CCE practices," said Joshi.

source: TOI