Stressed teachers don’t understand new system

Teachers complain of added burden.
Under CCE, assessment and teaching are no longer two separate entities. Assessment has to become an integral part of teaching. Teachers, who feel their burden has increased, haven’t probably understood the system properly.

Some schools have started assigning more homework and taking more unit tests. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of de-stressing students?
We have made it clear to the schools that students should be assessed on the work that they do in the classroom. The idea is to fruitfully utilise the time during class. However, to ensure that schools implement CCE properly, we have started a mentoring and monitoring system in which one school will be in charge of monitoring a cluster of 15 schools in the neighbourhood.

Students are not comfortable with the idea of being under constant scrutiny.
When we say regular evaluation, we do not mean constant scrutiny from the moment the child enters a classroom to the time he leaves. The idea has emerged out of miscommunication. We are clarifying this to schools now.

Do you think the new system lets down the academically-bright students?
It’s high time we focus on cooperation than competition. I understand bright students feel the need to be challenged. In their case, we will soon be offering proficiency tests that will be conducted by agencies outside.

Was the imposition of CCE rushed?
We decided to introduce CCE in the middle of academic year because it gave us the opportunity to compare two different forms of assessment and get relevant feedback.

How do you plan to ensure that schools implement CCE properly in future?
We want to empower parents with information about CCE through workshops so they can demand its proper implementation. There will be refresher training courses with teachers and principals and the mentor/monitoring programme to see schools interpret the system properly.