Central Board OF Secondary Education (CBSE) is one of the most popular education boards in India with thousands of schools affiliated to it. Every year CBSE conducts board exams for class 10^th and class 12^th students in the month of March and April in which lakhs of students from all over India appear.

This year also, lakhs of students are expected to appear for the exams of various subjects to be conducted by CBSE for class 10^th and class 12^th.

As the examination time is just around the corner, students are busy preparing for their exams. For class 10^th students, there was an option to choose between basic mathematics and standard mathematics while appearing for the exam.

This is the first time that this option has been introduced by CBSE. It enables the students who do not wish to pursue mathematics in higher classes to appear for a basic version of the paper instead of the normal one.

As per reports, out of the total 19 lakh students expected to appear for the exam, only 32% students have opted for basic mathematics while the remaining 68% have opted for the standard version of the paper.

This means that around 6 lakh students will be attempting the basic mathematics question paper while appx. 13 lakh students will appear for the standard version of the paper.

This option was introduced by CBSE to reduce exam-related stress and make the assessment more learning-centric. Even though these two question papers will have different difficulty levels, the internal assessment, as well as the classroom teaching, would remain the same for both the options.

According to Mr Sanyam Bhardwaj who is the controller of examinations for CBSE “Of the total 19 Lakh (appx) students set to appear for class 10^th boards, as many as 6 lakh students have opted for Basic Mathematics paper while around 13 lakh students will appear for Standard Mathematics.”

He further added that the overall response to this rollout has been good, and it will help those students who did not wish to pursue mathematics after class 10^th and would also ensure improvement in their performance.

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While the board is optimistic about the response, the response of the parents has been adverse. Many parents felt that basic mathematics is an inferior choice.

They are in fact coercing their children to opt for mathematics even if hey lacked that aptitude. Thankfully, the educationists came to the fore and conducted extensive counselling sessions to help the parents understand different career choices sans mathematics.

Moreover, there is also an option for the students to appear for standard mathematics after they have appeared for basic mathematics, and they realise that  they want to appear for standard mathematics. This opportunity will be available in July 2020 and would allow them to pursue maths in higher classes.