Dear Principal,

Greetings from CBSE! As you might have noticed from the address printed above, there is a change in the address of the Academic Branch. It has now shifted from the erstwhile building of 17-B, I.P.Estate, New Delhi to its own building at Shiksha Sadan in the address given above. You are requested to kindly note the above change in address. The Board fervently hopes that the housing of the Academic Branch in its own building will facilitate to bring about more focused academic activities to catalyze the affiliated schools to actively and progressively participate in a meaningful journey towards the knowledge society.

As you are well aware, the Board has been addressing to several academic issues to empower the schools in enabling the students to realize their holistic potential in the process of learning. The Board has always believed that learning is a joyful experience and enables the learner to find the meaning and significance of life. It helps to discover the unfathomed oceans of knowledge and nurture the latent and creative potential in the learner. In a joyful learning environment the curiosity, the sense of enterprise and adventurism, the desire for creativity, the desire to cooperate and coexist is aroused. The learner feels less threatened and hence works in an atmosphere free from fear and stress. In turn, this objectives of the curriculum and its mode of transaction, therefore, have to focus in the achievement of the above goals.

Of late, the unwarranted overemphasis on the concept of examinations has created an artificial atmosphere of threat and unhealthy competition. This appears to have the negated the basic objectives of the educational process and the assimilation of information for scoring in examination has nullified the several vital components and competencies to be acquired in the process of learning. The concept of Pass and Failure at primary level has not played the desired diagnostic role, rather has acted as a deterrent to the joyful learning by creating a psychological roadblock.

In many cases, in spite of many success stories in physical, emotional, social and spiritual platforms, the learner is negated as a failure for want of scores in a single subject where he has no motivation due to one or the other reasons. The objective appears to be to identify what the learner is not capable of rather than what he is, which basically is an antithesis to the educational process.

The Board certainly believes that evaluation of the learner has to be done in context during the process of continuous learning as it plays a facilitative and supportive role. The fear and threat of the examination has to be minimized so that learning takes place in a stress free atmosphere. It is in this context, the Board had through its earlier circular No.7 dated 9th February, 2003 invited the attention of the schools to do away with the terminal examinations upto class V and also to initiate the process of continuous and comprehensive evaluation upto class VIII. The Board is pleased to note that the affiliated schools have responded quite positively to the above views and many schools have already implemented the same. It is reiterated that there is an urgent need to take this important academic initiative so that the students in all the affiliated schools have the necessary uniform stress free environment. The schools should desist from assessing the students on the basis of terminal examinations and move towards the continuous and comprehensive evaluation of the students without, as far as possible, any pass fail. If any student fails to obtain the minimum level of learning the same can be repeated in the subsequent class in a progressive manner.

As informed in the earlier circular, it is again reiterated that the schools should desist from giving home work to the students upto class II so that the time is gainfully used by the students for effective interation with the members of the family and in enriching their interpersonal relationships and emotional edifice. The Board is also working on certain guidelines to schools in this regard and would be made available to schools in due course.

The Board feels that the schools should provide more and better opportunities in learning of liberal arts including music, painting, dances and folk arts in schools at the primary level so that there is a broad-based learning empowering the emotional intelligence of the learners. This would be of immense help in fighting the consumerist needs at the individual and societal level.

The objectives of Indian Education have always been to enhance the holistic profile of the individual built on a strong value base. The CBSE has been contributing significantly in this direction with the assistance of all its affiliated schools.

In order to acquire leadership in the knowledge society, we need to take positive and meaningful steps wherein our human resources will have the necessary competencies required for a long lasting performance. All the affiliated schools are partners with the CBSE in this responsible task. We do hope that the affiliated schools will join hands to develop human resources that would make our future generation successful in a global competitive situation.

Yours faithfully,

(G.BALASUBRAMANIAN)

DIRECTOR (ACADEMIC)