CBSE, could you please answer some questions?

 That I am writing a post devoted to the doings, nee wrong doings, of the  Central Board of Secondary Education should in itself show the gravity of the situation for the students caught in the quagmire of inefficiency, ineptness and babudom that passes off as the premier educational board of our country.

 CBSE has a lot of explaining to do this year :

 1. I agree that CBSE is within its rights to change the structure of different papers- as has been done this year. But should CBSE not have ensured that the schools and subject teachers were well informed and well trained for the changes?

 2.Was any workshop held for the subject teachers in which the teachers were made aware of the pattern changes and type of application /HOTS questions that would be asked this year?

 3. To prepare the teachers for the level of difficulty this year were they asked to give internal departmental tests/exams? This would have been the ideal way to prepare the teachers -who in turn could have taught accordingly and set half yearly and pre board papers accordingly.

 4. Traditionally the pre board papers are tougher than the board papers. I would want the CBSE to show even a single pre board paper which has the same difficulty level as the Maths paper of 2015.

 5.The learned people who set the Maths  and Physics 2015 CBSE paper need to tell us if they themselves sat down to answer these papers  and if yes, could they answer it in the stipulated 3 hours?

 6. According to the  TOI dt. 19/03/205 the officiating CBSE Chairman has said that the Maths paper will be sent to the evaluation committee before deciding the marking scheme. Shouldn't the evaluation committee have vetted the level of difficulty of the paper of  such an important exam before it was given to hapless 17 year olds who were reduced to tears?Or  was  this one of the objectives of  the CBSE? To check the level of toughness of the candidates?

7.The sadism exhibited by CBSE in setting the Time Table for the board exams also needs to be explained. When was the last time that there was a gap of only 2 days between Physics and Chemistry? And only 1 day gap between Maths and Economics? And this is when CBSE was in the know of the level of difficulty for this year?

 8.. I understand that directions to CBSE come from the HRD minister and our honourable HRD minister has been lucky enough to make it to where she is without a college degree- oops! I forgot the Yale 'degree'- but most of the children are not going to strike gold without college. And now CBSE has ensured that dreams of a good college education remain just that- a dream !

9. I know that now there will be talk of leniency in marking/ grace marks etc. But is that the fair and correct way?Are the students whose future is at stake here going to be at the mercy of ad hoc grace/lenient marking?And who is going to decide this marking scheme? You see, CBSE does not even have a director right now. And because it does not have a head it will continue to act like a headless chicken. Except that the students and we ,the parents, are not laughing. The headless chicken has left us in tears.