A state government circular of October last year to all district officials of the school education department announcing a radical change in the character of class X and XII board exam question papers for students writing the school-leaving examinations of the Tamil Nadu State Board of School Education (TNSBSE) in February-March, has generated considerable anxiety within principals, teachers and parents of children in the state’s 53,000 government and 6,000 private matriculation schools (unique to Tamil Nadu). According to the circular, for the first time exam papers will include application and concept-based questions, and the AIADMK government has directed district education officials and school principals to guide and train students to take on the new-style question papers. 

Although the government is yet to make a formal announcement about the changed exam papers format and provide details about the percentage of application-based and textual questions, principals and teachers are in a tizzy because the announcement has come in the middle of the academic year, leaving little time for teachers to prepare students to answer the proposed new-style questions. Moreover, the fury of the north-east monsoon floods which devastated the state capital Chennai, Cuddalore, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts in November-December forced closure of schools for 35 days. This unprecedented calamity prompted the Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK government to postpone the half-yearly exams scheduled for December 7 to January 11 for all 6,000 matriculation and 53,000 government schools statewide.   

Against this backdrop not a few educationists and principals believe that the proposal to introduce revolutionary changes in the class X and XII board exams is not advisable and should be postponed to the next academic year. However, it’s pertinent to note the new-style question papers proposal was mooted by an expert committee constituted by the AIADMK government a year ago, in the wake of wide criticism over the quality of nearly one million class X students and 800,000 class XII students clearing the TNSBSE examinations every year. According to educationists, the sub-standard TNSBSE syllabus and its rote-centric exams have led to a huge increase in the number of students sailing through the board’s exams with flying colours year after year.

However, these star students don’t fare anywhere near as well as CBSE and CISCE-affiliated school students in the public exams for entry into engineering, medical and commerce colleges. Therefore a year ago the education ministry had proposed a change in the exam papers format to enable state board students to enter premier institutions such as the IITs and NITs. In June 2015, of the 451 class XII students from Tamil Nadu who qualified to write the JEE (advanced) of the IITs, only 33 were from TNSBSE-affiliated schools. 

In principle, academics in Chennai welcome the proposal to include analytical and application-based questions in the exam papers of the state board. But they are highly critical of the samacheer kalvi or common school curriculum — introduced by the predecessor DMK government in January 2010 and endorsed by its successor Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK government for all, including matriculation schools. For students of the latter in particular, the common curriculum and exam papers are untesting and too easy. 

“The TNSBSE Plus Two syllabus rewards rote memorisation and doesn’t test students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Learning outcomes in lower classes have also plunged because the sub-standard samacheer kalvi syllabus has simplified content for all subjects. Moreover the same questions are repeated year after year enabling students to score maximum marks in almost all subjects,” says R. Visalakshi, president of the Tamil Nadu Private Schools Association.

Consequently, students of TNSBSE-affiliated schools not only fare disastrously in the entrance exams of Central government-promoted undergrad colleges including the IITs, they also fare dismally after being admitted into higher education institutions within the state. Nearly half the students of Anna University’s 552 affiliated engineering colleges, who wrote the semester exams in November-December 2014, failed. In 58 colleges, the pass percentage was less than 20 percent and in 18 less than 10 percent. Students from TNSBSE schools are also finding it increasingly difficult to pass the national entrance exams of the state’s top deemed (private) universities.

The evidence is overwhelming. Unless Tamil Nadu quickly upgrades syllabuses and teaching-learning standards in state board schools and tests school-leaving students rigorously, the learning gap between students graduating from TNSBSE and CBSE and CISCE-affiliated boards will widen.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)