New Delhi: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has announced that the practice of declaring 'Compartment / Fail' in a subject will be discontinued from the current academic session.

As a part of its Examination Reforms, which will also see the implementation of the nine-point grading system, CBSE has introduced the system of awarding of 'Qualifying Certificates' to successful students.

Those candidates, who obtain the qualifying grades (D and above) in all subjects excluding the Additional subject, will be awarded a Qualifying Certificate.

Students who obtain grade E1 or E2 in a subject will have to improve their performance through subsequent five attempts.

For example, a candidate who appeared in Board's examination in March 2010, can appear in July 2010, March 2011, July 2011, March 2012 and July 2012 only in subjects in which he / she has got grade E1 or E2 till he / she gets qualifying grades (D and above) in all the subjects excluding Additional subject as per Scheme of Studies and becomes eligible for award of Qualifying Certificate.

Only those who get Qualifying Certificates shall be eligible for admission in higher classes.

"Schools begin ranking students, on the basis of their marks, from as early as their pre-primary years. Such a drive has several negative effects on learning. Students, parents and society at large become anxious in the race to acquire more and more marks in examinations which leads to an extremely stressful existence. Moreover, though all out efforts are made to enhance the reliability of examination, the human error cannot be avoided. This shortcoming can be overcome if the students are placed in ability bands that represent range of scores", a CBSE official said.

source: indiaedunews