Kannan, Harini
(2018)
Details matter: an evaluation of ‘evaluations’.
Learning Curve (30).
pp. 51-55.
Abstract
In August 2009, the Indian parliament enacted
the Right to Education (RTE) Act which enshrined
education from 6 to 14 years as a ‘right’. The Act
additionally mandated a variety of ‘requirements’
relating to infrastructure, Pupil Teacher Ratio
(PTR), curriculum, teacher training, inclusionary
education, and the focus of this article – a
continuous and comprehensive student evaluation
system (CCE). The objective of these mandates was
ensuring a ‘quality’ education for children.
Amongst the mandates, the introduction of
CCE signaled a paradigm shift in India’s public
education. Historically, student evaluations have
focused on measuring academic knowledge gained
by children over the course of a term or year
through terminal examinations. These were high-
stakes exams, as scores carried a lot of weight in
determining whether students were promoted or
detained in the same standard. Traditional systems
of evaluation were also very narrow in their scope
– the focus was primarily on evaluating students
on ‘subject’ knowledge and very rarely, if at all on
other aspects. CCE on the other hand, was meant
to be both continuous and comprehensive: by
‘continuous’ it meant that evaluation of students
would be done ‘continually’ over the course of the
academic term, and by ‘comprehensive’ it meant
that evaluations would not just focus on learning
in academic subjects, but also on co-curricular
activities and behaviour. The underlying sentiment
impelling these changes was that schooling should
foster learning, be enjoyable and less stress
inducing and focus on the holistic development of
a child.
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