Grace marks may be allotted to II PU students

Parents and students pointed out that students do not take I PU exams seriously, but work very hard for II PU exams

Grace marks may be allotted for second year pre university (II PU) students, who will be given marks/grades based on their SSLC and I PU marks. This is after the II PU examinations were cancelled due to the second wave of COVID-19 infections.

R. Snehal, Director, Department of Pre-University Education (DPUE), told The Hindu that the department was planning to award overall grace marks to the total score. “This is because many students would have put in a lot of effort for the II PU board examinations. With the examinations cancelled, we want to make sure that their efforts are considered,” she said.

The department decided to mull over this idea after parents and students highlighted that students do not tend to take the I PU examinations very seriously but work very hard for their II PU exams.

B.R. Supreeth, principal of Oxford Independent PU College, said that it was inevitable for them to give grace marks. “The decision not to conduct the examination is a blunder. They have to allot grace marks so that injustice is not done to students,” he said.

K.R. Manjunath, principal, MES PU College, BTM Layout said moderation may be a better idea than grace marks. “While grace marks means giving all students a few marks, moderation means inflating marks of students, so that the average marks remain high,” he explained.

Six options

On Monday, DPUE officials chalked out six different options of how II PU students can be graded for this academic year and how much weightage should be given for SSLC/class 10 marks, and how much for I PU marks.

The officials had to spend a lot of time brainstorming how the marks will be calculated as SSLC students and CBSE/ ICSE students write different number of papers for their SSLC and class 10 examinations, respectively.

“While SSLC students have three language papers, central board students appear for only two language papers. Students in SSLC only appear for three core subjects – science, social science and mathematics. Central board students, on the other hand, appear for many more core subjects, which includes physics, chemistry, biology, history and geography. So we will have to decide how to grade them,” a source in the department said.

A source said that one of the six options that were being considered was giving equal weightage to class 10 and first PU marks by taking the average of the core subjects and the average of languages.

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