Reforms introduced in SSC exams

Amaravati: Government has issued rules under the new education policy to conduct the SSC Public examinations from March 2020 onwards, as part of reforms. B Rajasekhar, Principal Secretary, School Education issued the modifications in SSC Public examinations on Tuesday.

To ensure quality in assessments, the BluePrint is modified with a shift from assessing rote learning to conceptual understanding and higher-order thinking skills of the students. That includes critical, creative, logical and analytical thinking through appropriate assessment tools.

Question paper contains 4 sections: 1. Objective type questions. For these type of questions, the answer should be in one word or phrase and there would be no choice. 2. Very Short Answer Type Questions. Students have to write an answer to these questions in one or two sentences and there would be no choice. 3. Short answer questions. Answer in two to four sentences, no choice. 4. Essay type questions, for which the students will be asked to answer in eight to ten sentences. The internal choice will be available for these essay type questions.

There will be 12 questions in Objective Type section and each question will carry half (½) mark and all the questions will carry 6 marks. This would be 12% of the total marks given to that particular exam paper. The student would get 1.5 minute time on an average to answer each question in this section. The total time for this section is 18 minutes.

In the very short answer questions section, there will be 8 questions and each question will carry one mark and total 8 marks, with a percentage of 16 per cent of the total marks given to the paper. Each question will be given 3 minutes time and for all the questions, there will be 24 minutes.

When comes to the short answer questions, there will be 8 questions and each one will carry 2 marks and all the questions carry a total of 16 marks with 32 per cent weight in the paper. To answer each question in this section, 6 minutes time will be given and a total of 48 minutes will be given for students.

There will be 5 essay type questions and each will carry 4 marks. All five questions together will carry 20 marks. This is 4- per cent of the total marks assigned to the paper. Students will get 12 minutes of time for each question. Exactly one hour time allocated for the students to answer all the five essay questions in the exam.

For each 50 marks exam paper, there will be a total of 33 questions and 150 minutes time.

Director of Government Examinations directed to make arrangements to supply 24 pages ruled or dotted single answer booklet to the students for writing the examinations. The Commissioner, Printing, Stationery & Stores Purchase Department, AP asked to meet the expenditure for this purpose.

The current practice of DEOs/District Common Examination Boards contributing to framing Question Papers for Class-X Examinations is discontinued.

The Director, SCERT is entrusted with the responsibility of development of question papers for SSC Public Examinations for Class-X duly engaging the Assessment Cell and coordinating with the Director, Government Examinations. The Commissioner of School Education shall define and delineate the roles of SCERT and DGE to bring in alignment to improve quality and maintaining confidentiality in this aspect.

Paper wise Grades in Marks Memorandum:

In addition to the existing mention of subject-wise grades, paper-wise grades secured by the students are to be mentioned in the SSC marks memorandum.