The government of Andhra Pradesh is going to introduce the six question-paper pattern that the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) uses, for SSC Public Exams. The state government planned on introducing CBSE syllabus to government schools and this decision is in keeping with the plan. Until now, the students had been writing 11 papers and the student was evaluated based on four unit tests and two terminal examinations. However, according to this new pattern, the students will only write six papers. The question papers for physical sciences and natural sciences will be the same, though the answer scripts for both will be different. Furthermore, languages and non-languages will be assessed in one paper.
This move was based on the report made by State Council for Education Research and Training (SCERT) that discussed the benefits and drawbacks of proceeding with the 11-paper system that was introduced prior to the Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) system. The Director of SCERT, B Pratap Reddy, said that the CBSE only has one paper and five examinations while the rest are optional. He further added that “As members of an academic body, we suggested limiting the public exam to six or seven papers to minimise the stress among students.” A similar move had been made during the pandemic for the academic years 2020 and 2021, where the 11 papers were reduced to seven in order to lower the burden on students.
S Rama Krishna, who is the president of Municipal Teachers Federation State, attested that the new pattern would result in the decrease of stress on students, however, implementing it might result in students’ scores dropping in subjects like mathematics and social sciences. Sravan Kumar, president of AP Upadhyaya Sangham State, also averred that the exams for physical and natural sciences should be conducted separately and not together.
