New Delhi: Nearly two weeks after the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Council of Indian Secondary Certificate Examinations (CISCE) announced an evaluation pattern for Class 12 results, the Maharashtra government on Friday announced they would follow the same 30:30:40 pattern for Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) students. Nearly two weeks after the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Council of Indian Secondary Certificate Examinations (CISCE) announced an evaluation pattern for Class 12 results, the Maharashtra government on Friday announced they would follow the same 30:30:40 pattern for Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) students.

Nearly 1.5 million students take HSC exams in the state every year. State school education minister VarshaGaikwad announced that in HSC results, 30% weightage each will be given to Class 10 and 11 marks and 40% to Class 12 internal test marks and students’ performance in the year. “To ensure that students from different boards are graded at the same level, Maharashtra board will also follow the 30:30:40 formula, giving weightage to Class 10, 11 and 12 performance. For students who feel they want to improve their scores, depending on the Covid situation in the state, we will conduct two rounds of exams,” said Gaikwad in a press conference held in the city on Friday.

In keeping with the decision of the Supreme Court to ensure that all Class 12 results are announced by July 31, Gaikwad requested junior college principals and teachers to work towards the deadline.

“It will be difficult but I request all staff, teachers and principals to get together and work this out as soon as possible,” she added.

This year, Covid-19 pushed all education boards to rethink their decision of conducting board exams at a time when the country was grappling with a deadly second wave. Scrapping of exams was unanimously accepted by all, and instead, grading students on a formula giving weightage to students’ performance of past three years was unanimously accepted.

The approved mechanism for CBSE Class 12 students includes a 30:30:40 formula, which takes into account a student’s performance in the past three examinations (the 12th pre-board, 11th finals, and 10th board) to settle at a score for the theory component of the examination that could not be held. The theory portion accounts for 70% or 80% of a subject score, with the remainder coming from internal practical tests that most schools managed to complete prior to the outbreak of the second wave of Covid-19.

In the case of CISCE, the formula will take into consideration the students’ Class 10 ICSE Board exam results, project and practical work in subjects, and best marks obtained in school exams in Classes 11 and 12. While the state is positive that the results will be ready by the end of this month, teachers and junior college principals feel this mammoth task is impossible to achieve within the next one month.

“As the final result will include marks of Class 10, 11 and overall performance of students in class 12, it won’t be possible to do this sitting at home. Teachers will have to start visiting respective schools/junior colleges and work with the admin staff to get Class 10 and 11 marks and put it together. Since trains are still not accessible for teachers, it’ll be difficult for us to travel to and from the college to work on the results,” said a teacher, on condition of anonymity.