In a significant legal development, the Karnataka High Court’s Division Bench has stayed the Single Judge order quashing the state’s school education department’s directive to conduct board examinations for students in classes 5, 8, and 9.
The interim order has been passed today in an appeal filed by the State Government.
AAG Vikram Huilgol urged a bench of Justices K Somashekar and Umesh Adiga to stay the single-judge’s March 6 order halting the Board Exams.
Earlier the single judge bench of Justice Ravi V Hosmani, delivered the verdict in favor of the Registered Associations of Private Unaided Schools, who challenged the state’s notification.
The associations has argued before Single Judge that the implementation of board exams was in direct conflict with the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) approach, which is a cornerstone of the Right To Education Act (RTE) of 2009. The court’s decision has been widely welcomed by private school entities and other educational stakeholders, who raised concerns about the negative impacts that centralized board exams could have on the holistic learning experience of students.
Background
Initially, in December 2022, the state had introduced board exams for 5th and 8th graders in schools following the state syllabus, with the aim of improving learning outcomes and bridging educational gaps. The program, spearheaded by the Karnataka School Examinations and Assessment Board, was designed to focus on both formative and summative assessments and intended to replace traditional methods of student detention with a more inclusive educational strategy.
However, in a move to extend this assessment framework to include 9th and 11th graders from the 2023-24 academic year, the state aimed at standardizing evaluation processes across the board to ensure thorough syllabus coverage and elevate the overall quality of education. This latest court ruling, however, puts a halt to these plans, reaffirming the commitment to uphold CCE’s principles of inclusive and comprehensive student evaluation.
