Hyderabad: The students of government schools in Andhra Pradesh have been on a see-saw between exam patterns of the state board and the Central Board of Secondary Education. In the latest development, the Chandrababu Naidu government has deferred their transition from the state board to the CBSE and turned them back towards the state board’s assessment.
The development, which comes in the middle of the academic year, immediately affects 76,990 Class 10 students preparing for the 2024-2025 CBSE exams across 1,000 government-run schools in the state. The previous Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party government of Jagan Mohan Reddy had selected these 1,000 schools out of 6,845 government-run ones for CBSE assessment in 2024-25. But now, they face the Andhra Pradesh Board of Secondary Education’s Secondary School Certificate assessment.
The new Telugu Desam Party-led government took the decision after conducting an online formative assessment for 75,843 students across the 1,000 schools on question papers aligned with CBSE standards. Conducted in August, heeding concerns that students and teachers are ill-equipped to handle the CBSE exams, the assessment threw up startling outcomes.
The assessment included English, maths, science, and social science papers, with 35 set as the pass mark in each subject. Of the 1,000 schools, 326 schools recorded a zero pass percentage and 556 schools an under-25 pass percentage. Meanwhile, 66 schools recorded a pass percentage between 26 and 50, 37 between 51 and 75, and 14 between 76 and 99. Only one school achieved a 100 pass percentage.
Calling the students’ performance “alarmingly poor”, the Chandrababu Naidu government said the “vast majority of schools and students are not currently prepared for the demands of CBSE board examinations”. Accordingly, the government ordered shifting all the 1,000 schools to the SSC board assessments for 2024-25, a school education department note accessed by ThePrint showed. The CBSE assessment stands deferred for now.
Speaking to ThePrint, Kona Sasidhar, the secretary of Andhra Pradesh school education, said, “It would be a gross injustice to ask these students to take the CBSE board exams in the present situation. Failures would prompt drop-outs, and in some cases, parents might get their girl child married off, instead of sending her for higher studies.”
The CBSE exam, Kona said, can be resumed “once the capacities of students and teachers arrive at the minimum threshold”. “We cannot commit to a deadline. First, we want to strengthen the children to lift the extra load, i.e., build capacities for critical thinking, etc., so that our kids are prepared for the CBSE or better benchmarks.”
The official said that a gradual transformation to improve standards would be taken up from Class 6 onwards in all government schools from 2025-26 “to provide a structured transition, enabling students and teachers to become accustomed to the new system without overwhelming them”.
Teachers’ bodies and some of the 77,000-odd students have welcomed the move.
“The government decision is in student welfare, especially for those from rural areas, who, in the past, have been studying in the Telugu medium. Failing or performing badly in CBSE exams would adversely impact a student’s confidence. It would have a bearing on further studies, such as Class 12, which acts as the gateway to the IITs, the NITs, etc., where many students from the state get admitted year on year,” said Sreenivasa Rao Challagundla, the president of the Andhra Pradesh secondary grade teachers’ federation.
“We transitioned to the NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) curriculum only last year, i.e., when I was in Class 9. We were asked to take the CBSE exams this year. I was quite tense like all my classmates but am quite relieved now,” said a Class 10 student from the Brahmanapalli high school in the state’s Piduguralla district.
A problem now is that the 77,000-odd students will have to prepare for the Telugu lanugage paper exam under SSC, according to revised books adopted in the rest of the schools. The 1,000 schools, so far preparing for the CBSE exams, had studied the old Telugu textbooks. However, the rest of the curriculum remains the same.
“We have been asked to take extra classes, among other things, to finish the Telugu syllabus by November end,” a teacher from the Brahmanapalli high school said.
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‘No groundwork for CBSE transition’
Currently, 4,01,200 students are enrolled in Class 10 across the 6,845 government-run high schools in the state.
Over the past five years, Jagan Mohan Reddy has brought some swift and sweeping changes to school education teaching and assessment patterns, including the controversial and contentious shift of the medium of all government schools from Telugu to English. Classes 1 to 6 shifted to English medium from the academic year 2021-2022, and higher classes adopted it progressively, and by now, all classes have transitioned to English medium.
Moreover, Jagan wanted to shift all government schools to the CBSE curriculum, and all government schools adopted the NCERT textbooks for classes 6-10. Then, on 1 April 2023, the Jagan government affilitated 1,000 schools to the CBSE curriculum, with their CBSE affiliations proposed to last till 31 March 2028.
The Class 9 students from these 1,000 schools were registered to appear for the CBSE Class 10 exams in 2024-2025. On the other hand, the remaining 3,24,210 students in the other 5,845 government-run high schools were supposed appear for the Class 10 exams under the state board.
Explaining the reason for conducting the mid-year assessment across the former 1,000 schools, school education department officials said, parents, and teachers bodies raised concerns that pupils in the 1000 schools are “ill-equipped to handle CBSE board exams”.
The school education department’s note underlined that “capacity building of teachers has been grossly inadequate to prepare students for CBSE board exams and since students have not been exposed to CBSE standard of assessments so far, there is a very high risk of failures in the final exams”.
The note observed that the CBSE board exam is of a higher standard and has a different pattern of questions, adding that the previous Jagan government did not lay adequate groundwork for the transition to CBSE in the 1,000 schools. “As such, the decision to shift 1,000 schools to CBSE board assessments was unilateral without consulting teachers, students or parents. Further, no base-level assessments were done to understand the system preparedness to handle CBSE evaluation,” it said.
Though the Jagan government planned to shift the 1,000 schools to CBSE three years ago, in 2021-22, “no concrete steps were taken by the previous government to build capacities in the said schools to meet CBSE standards,” the note said. The Jagan government, it added, did not approve infrastructure work worth Rs 687 crore and a recurring expenditure of Rs 150 crore sanctioned for these schools.
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Jagan vs Lokesh
After the government decision, former CM Jagan took to X, saying that Chandrababu Naidu “once again proved he is anti-poor by cancelling CBSE in government schools”. He reminded that “Naidu had opposed English medium education too in state-run schools”.
“You as the Chief Minister and your son as the education minister are taking government schools back to square one with regressive decisions. You want to provide the best education to children in your homes but discriminate in the case of government school children? Should they remain at the bottom forever?” Jagan questioned on Monday.
Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh is the TDP general secretary and the state’s human resources development minister.
Jagan claimed he did many things in his five-year tenure, including Nadu-Nedu, that is, improving school infrastructure such as setting up interactive flat panels in classrooms, the transition of schools to English medium, steps towards CBSE, IB, and TOEFL, and introducing the concept of subject teachers and tasty nutritious MDM menu — all of “which Naidu never did in his 14-year rule before”.
“Now on your command, all these reforms are being cancelled one by one. You and your son are running a conspiracy to send government school children to private schools. Should private schools owned by your party leaders flourish and government schools be defunct?” Jagan further asked.
Lokesh responded on X, calling Jagan’s comments ignorant. “Your (CBSE) decision became a bane for 1000s of government school students. The future of 75,000 students became uncertain as they were required to write CBSE exams with no capacity building. Exam system was changed without providing training to teachers,” he wrote.
The minister said that after consulting experts, his department will “bring in gradual changes in the system from 6th class from next academic year to (eventually) prepare them well to write the exams in CBSE”.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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