CBSE-transition deferred based on feedback, mass failure in test: Andhra Pradesh Government

NEW DELHI: The Andhra Pradesh government, in a statement on Wednesday, said that the decision to defer the transition to Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) examinations for Class 10 was based on feedback from teachers about the schools being “inadequately prepared” for the move to CBSE assessments.

Students from the 1,000 CBSE-affiliated government schools will now appear for the state-board examinations in 2024-25. The exams will continue to be held in English but will be based on the Board of Secondary Education Andhra Pradesh (BSEAP) syllabus and assessments.

The government said that the “alarmingly poor” performance of students when tested with CBSE-level examinations during internal assessments showed a high risk of mass failure that can lead to dropouts. Hence, the decision to introduce CBSE exams is being “deferred” and will be taken up once the capacities of students and teachers “arrive at the minimum threshold”.

The government, led by the Telugu Desam Party, was responding to criticism from former chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy during whose tenure the 1,000 government schools were converted into CBSE in April, 2023.

Reddy, in a series of social media posts on Monday, had called the current chief minister Chandra Babu Naidu “anti-poor” for “cancelling” the CBSE system in government schools, thereby “denying quality education” to the students. Reddy also called the decisions a “conspiracy” to send government school children to private schools.

No groundwork, no consultation

The Andhra Pradesh government, in a widely-circulated note, argued that the previous government had not done any base-level assessment before shifting the schools to CBSE, which has a “higher standard” of questions. It also said that teachers have not been sufficiently trained to deliver CBSE content effectively, causing “systemic issues in educational delivery”.

“The CBSE board assessment has a higher standard and different types of questions for which adequate groundwork has not been done in the said 1,000 schools. As such, the decision to shift 1,000 schools to CBSE board assessments has been done unilaterally without consulting the teachers, students or parents. Further, no base-level assessments were done to understand the preparedness of the system to handle the CBSE-level of assessments,” said the statement.

The former government, led by Jagan Mohan Reddy, shifted government schools from Telugu and Urdu medium to English medium in 2021-2022. The changes were first introduced in Classes 1 to 6. By 2024-2025. all classes were in English-medium. Educationists at the time had warned that the sudden shift in medium would affect learning.

“After the new government took charge in June 2024, feedback has been received from various quarters that, at present, both the teachers and the students in the said 1,000 schools are ill-equipped to handle CBSE board exams since the capacity building of teachers has been grossly inadequate to prepare the students for the CBSE board Exams and since students have not been exposed to CBSE standard of assessments so far, there is a very high risk of failures in the final exams,” said the note.

The TDP-led government, in the statement, also said that the former government did not sanction adequate funds for the transition to occur. “In order to meet the CBSE standards in the said 1,000 schools, infrastructure works worth Rs 687 crores and recurring expenditure of Rs 150 crores should have been sanctioned by the government. However, no such sanctions were accorded by the previous government,” it said in the statement.

‘Alarmingly poor’ performance

The Andhra Pradesh government conducted internal assessments to measure students’ performance when met with CBSE-standard questions.The assessments were conducted for 75,843 students, in English, mathematics, science, and social studies, from August 21 to 24. There were also two supplementary assessment phases which extended till August 31. The minimum pass percentage was kept at 35% for each subject.

According to the government, 90% of students in the 1,000 schools failed the test in at least one subject. Moreover, 326 schools had zero pass percentage and 556 schools had a pass percentage between 1% and 25%. The government argued that attending the CBSE board exams with this level of preparation can lead to a huge number of students failing which can eventually force them to drop out of schools.

“The students in these schools risk failing these examinations, which could harm their academic futures and career prospects. Students failing multiple subjects are likely to experience high levels of academic stress, which may lead to disengagement and a higher dropout rate, especially in critical transition years like Class 10,” the government said.

It is also said that a “structured transition” to better standards in assessments will be taken up from Class 6 onwards in all government schools from 2025-26. The government claimed that this will enable students and teachers to “become accustomed to the new system without overwhelming them”.