CBSE Asks for EA to Verify Internal Marks Given By Schools

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is now up to collect Evidence of Assessments (EA) from all affiliated schools.  Collection of EA is one of the most important annual exercises of CBSE as it is done to ensure fairness in internal markings.

The CBSE rechecks the materials assessed by schools through the process of EA. This is applicable for classes that come under the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) Scheme of CBSE, specifically for classes IX and X. However, the board will collect EA only of formative assessments.

Under CCE scheme, the assessment of students is done by two ways – formative, which entails practicals, projects, etc., and summative that is done through theory paper. Hence, the EA is being collected for formative assessment of subjects like Hindi, English, mathematics, science and social science.

For the collection of EA, the schools are randomly selected by the CBSE regional office, and then being asked to send 15 randomly picked answer sheets and evaluation details for the main five subjects each. These 15 answer sheets are picked broken into three grades -- five, which got the highest grade, five from the middle grade level and five from the lowest grade, in order to bring symmetry in the process. The assessment of all these answer sheets taken together is called EA.

The EAs for all the five subjects, and the marks awarded are then verified by the subject evaluators appointed and empanelled by the CBSE at the regional level. Details of the selected schools will be updated soon on the CBSE's website.

Schools have been asked to send EAs to the regional offices by 15 November 2013.

The director of CBSE, Sadhana Parashar, wrote to schools that the objective of collecting EA is to review the practices of school based assessment. The appointed subject evaluators would submit their report on these EAs vis-a-vis the internal marks awarded by schools. Their report will help verify the school-based assessments and provide feedback to the central board on implementation of CCE scheme at grass roots level.

The CBSE would also instruct schools on how to make assessment more effective, said the director.