With the leak of its annual examination question papers of a few subjects the Central Board of Secondary Education faces a serious erosion of credibility. State board question papers have been leaked in the past. Also the examination system has been criticised of encouraging rote learning rather than creativity in education.

Yes, there is a need to change the examination system because :-

1. The use of a quantitative indicator with rising importance for social decision-making makes it more vulnerable to corruption pressures, and distorts and undermines the very processes it is intended to monitor.
2. The present system puts excessive stress on the students which is visible in the rising number of suicides, focuses on rote learning rather than learning the subject etc.
3. Such an approach will end the scramble for high scores in a definitive board examination, and the exam stress that the government has been trying to alleviate. It will also limit the fallout of a leak.
4. Examination reforms that focus on problem-solving, critical thinking and reasoning skills are critical to improving quality at the secondary level.
5. Such reforms will change the teaching–learning processes and improve learning outcomes.
6. In recent years, CBSE has introduced wide-ranging examination reforms in schools affiliated to it ,a system of grading in place of marks has been introduced etc.
7. Instead of having one examination at the end of the annual year if a continuous assessment is done via unit tests, quarterly exams, projects, seminars etc the pressure on students is eased.
8. The class room activities do not provide scope for the child’s creative abilities to flourish. The information in the book is learnt in a monotonous way. This is the flaw in the system
9. The examinations are inadequate to test various other skills in a child. Examinations provide no scope for any creativity and children can only reproduce from memory.

However there are some challenges:-

In 1962, there were 309 schools in India under CBSE, while at present, the Board has 18,688 schools affiliated to it, most of which follow varying assessment and report card patterns. This brings in the need to have a uniform system of assessment and evaluation of students and remove any sort of disparity in the system that creates problems for students needing to migrate from one CBSE school to another.

Issues with CCE(Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation):-

• This had put the students under tremendous pressure.
• Though the new syllabus has given more importance to activity oriented earning. This was aimed at doing away with rote learning system, it appeared that this has not helped to reduce ‘exam fever’ among students.

Also teacher quality is not upto the mark so without strengthening teachers knowledge base creative assessment cannot be done effectively.

Rural-urban bias might increase as schools in rural areas still lack necessary utilities.

Way forward:-

1. The system needs to be one that enables students to truly learn what they are being taught and internalize it and not just mug it up for a few days or months.
2. It needs to be more long term than what the situation is at present.
3. At the same time it also needs to be practical so that the students abilities are properly tested
4. Teachers should be trained to meet the growing requirements in the education sector.