CBSE Moderation Policy & Latest Updates:

Well, CBSE Moderation Policy or simply we can say it Marks Moderation Policy is basically a provision for providing Grace Marks. This policy states that if any student falling short of a few marks in CBSE Board Exams then by this policy provision he will get grace marks and he will be able to clear Board Exams.  There is one more provision in this policy for providing Grace Marks to those students who have attempted very difficult questions and out of syllabus questions as CBSE provide different sets of Question Papers for same subject.

How Marks Moderation Policy works:

Marks moderation was introduced in the year 1992, during the time when different education boards across the country, were attempting to curb the disparity in the results and compensate the marks difference during a difficult paper or tougher set of questions on the same subject.

After receiving several complaints about the difficulty level of a paper, the concerned board members would form an expert panel and decide the quantity of extra marks (which could go up to 15 %) to be provided to each student for such tougher questions.

An expert in The Times of India report stated that, spiking the scores of below average students and awarding up to 10 extra marks for candidates who failed to achieve the qualifying score, was causing harm to an otherwise progressive policy of marks moderation.

State boards like Maharashtra, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar have no such moderation policy while Goa, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu follow this provision to improve and redeem their overall pass percentage in the state. This serves to be unfair for those candidates, who inspite of working just as hard are not able to clear the cut-off for admissions in colleges nor are they able to meet the criteria of getting selected in universities abroad.

Reason behind abolishment of CBSE Moderation Policy:

Eventually, this policy has created a lot of controversies as it resulted in inflation of students who score more than 95 per cent marks.

Hence, in order to curtail the percentage of students scoring more than 95% marks, CBSE decided to banish the marks moderation policy this year. But, since the other state boards retained the pattern, it was bound to lead the C.B.S.E students at a disadvantage.

Thus, the declaration of the class 12 C.B.S.E 2017 results was postponed, as according to the orders of the Delhi High Court, the moderation policy was to be followed by the next academic session.

Latest Updates on CBSE Moderation Policy:

After long debates and rebuttal, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) along with 32 other boards have finally planned to do banish the moderation policy or grace mark system for the upcoming session, to ensure uniformity in the grading system.

HRD Ministry has issued an advisory to all State Boards regarding this policy. In this advisory, it is clear that States can provide Moderate Marks only when there the mistake in Question Paper or it is not clear. In this advisory States are asked for suggestions on making a Standard formula for Question Paper Assessment by 31-Oct-2017.