More subjects, credit system: What changes CBSE has proposed for Class 10 and 12, why

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), the country’s largest national school board, is planning significant changes to the academic framework of Classes 9, 10, 11, and 12 as part of its plan to implement creditisation, recommended by the 2020 National Education Policy (NEP).

The CBSE, The Indian Express reported last week, has proposed that Class 10 and 12 students study more subjects, especially more native Indian languages.

The plan was sent to all heads of CBSE-affiliated institutions late last year, to review and provide comments by December 5, 2023.

What is the credit system and why is CBSE rolling it out?

Creditisation aims to establish academic equivalence between vocational and general education, facilitating mobility between the two education systems, as proposed by the NEP 2020. To implement this, the University Grants Commission — the higher education regulator — had come up with the National Credit Framework (NCrF) in 2022.

NCrF is a unified credit framework for the integration of training and skill development into schools and higher education. For a student in Class 9 to advance to Class 10, they will need to earn a specified number of credits. Eventually, the student will earn enough credits to be eligible to enrol in an undergraduate programme in a university. The credits earned by a student will be digitally stored in the Academic Bank of Credits and accessible through a linked Digilocker account.

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To implement this in its affiliated schools, the CBSE formed a subcommittee in 2022 that suggested how the current academic framework should be redesigned to align it with NCrF.

What changes has the CBSE subcommittee proposed?

At present, the standard school curriculum does not have a formalised credit system. As per the CBSE plan, an academic year would be made up of 1,200 notional learning hours, which would translate to earning 40 credits. Notional learning refers to a stipulated amount of time an average student would need to spend to attain specified outcomes. In other words, each subject has been allotted a certain number of hours so that, in a year, a student spends a total of 1,200 learning hours to be declared ‘pass’. The hours will include both academic learning at school and non-academic or experiential learning outside the school.

The scheme of studies has accordingly been tweaked to mention teaching hours and credits earned against each subject.

In order to operationalise this, the committee has proposed to add multidisciplinary and vocational courses to the list of existing subjects. So, in order to pass the final exams, students in Classes 9 and 10 must complete 10 subjects — three languages and seven core subjects. Currently, students in these grades have to take five subjects: three main subjects and two languages.

Of the three compulsory languages, at least two should be Indian. For instance, students can choose a combination of Hindi, Sanskrit and English. That apart, math and computational thinking, social science, science, art education, physical education and well-being, vocational education and environmental education are the seven main subjects.

For Classes 11 and 12, the Board suggested that students must study six subjects, consisting of two languages and four subjects with an optional fifth. At least one of the two languages has to be Indian. The current system requires passing five subjects — one language and four electives.

How will exams be conducted under the proposed system?

The credits earned will be independent of the marks students obtain in exams.

For Class 10 students, CBSE will conduct external (read: board) exams for the three languages, mathematics and computational thinking, social science, science and environmental education. Art education, physical education and vocational education would be a mix of internal and Board examination. But students would have to pass all 10 subjects to move on to the next grade.

In Class 12, all subjects will be categorised into four groups. The languages group is categorised as Group 1. Group 2 would consist of subjects of arts education (like dance, music, sculpting), physical education, and vocational education. Group 3 will have social science subjects (eg: history, geography, political science, economics etc) and interdisciplinary areas (such as environmental education and commerce). Group 4 has mainly subjects of mathematics and computational thinking and science.

Class 12 students will have to choose at least two languages from Group 1, and four main subjects (with an optional fifth subject) from at least two of the remaining groups. There will be an external exam for both languages and Groups 3 and 4 subjects. If a student chooses to study a subject from Group 2, she will be assessed based on a mix of internal and Board exams.

What will happen to the existing grading system?

In all CBSE-affiliated schools, students are graded based on the marks obtained in the examination. The credit system recommended will not change this. For each subject, students will be graded from A1, A2 up to D and E as per usual. For awarding grades, the Board will put all students in a rank order and award grades. The top one-eighth of the candidates who passed the exam, for example, will receive an A1 grade; the next one-eighth will receive an A2 grade, and so on.

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