Grade X CBSE RESULTS RIYADH/JEDDAH/DAMMAM – The International Indian School Dammam (IISD) bagged the first position in the Kingdom in the New Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) results of Class X examination, held under the grading system for the first time. Eleven IISD students scored A1 in all the five subjects, while the International Indian School Jeddah (IISJ) and International Indian School Riyadh (IISR) came second and third with three A1 grades and one A1 grade, respectively. A total of 2,093 students from the three main CBSE-affiliated schools in Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam sat the exams held in March this year. Of the 695 students who appeared for the exams from IISJ, 681 qualified while 14 are eligible for improvement. IISR fielded 703 students in the exams. Under the new grading system, A1 represents a score of 91-100 (Excellent), B1 is 81-90, C1 is 51-60, C2 is 41-50, D stands for 33-40 while E1 and E2 (Dissatisfactory) are below 33. The grades also have equivalent points, which start from 10 grade points for A1 to four for D. The internal assessment marks of the students are added to the board examination scores and students get grades instead of percentages. E.K. Muhammad Shaffe, IISD Principal, said as the exact marks a student gets in the examination will not be revealed, these points can be multiplied with 9.5 to get the average marks represented by the grades. Thus, A1 will be equal to 95, A2 is 85.5, B1 is 76, B2 is 66.5, C1 is 57, C2 is 47.5 and D will be equal to 38 average marks. “With 11 students securing A1 in all subjects our school, for the eleventh consecutive year, has performed extremely well in the Class-X examinations,” said Shaffe. The IISD students who secured A1s in all the five subjects are Nasrin Mohammed Shaffe, Ramesh Ashwath, Vargese Thomas, Mohammed Adnan Oqwaish, Aysha Zinan, Meghna Satheesh, Amala Philsi Varghese, Sahar Mohammed Ismail, Theertha Gireesan, Saumiya Narayan, Snehal Devasiya. The three A1-graders from IISJ are Afroze Shahana Ashraf, Lubna Amir Patel and Essam while IISR's Manal is the only student who got an A1 in all subjects from that school. Meanwhile, IISJ MC chairman Salah Karadan said: “Our school has 100 percent pass results. Everyone is still getting used to this new system of grading and we assure there will much improvement in our students' grades in the future. On the average it has been a good result”. Describing CBSE's new scheme of evaluation, Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE), introduced in 2009-210 as ‘revolutionary', IISJ Principal Syed Masood Ahmed said the system “assesses students in a holistic manner as a child's ability cannot be measured in just three hours (of an exam)”. He said that the system has been acceptable to all students, while admitting that there are some concerns. “There are practical difficulties – large class strengths are one of these. Teachers have to evaluate over 50 students in a class; this has to be reduced but new admissions are a problem because we do not have enough space,” he said. Addressing some parents' and students' apprehensions on unfair or biased evaluation by the teacher in internal assessments, Ahmed said: “This system is not without its checks and balances. There are two aspects to it: one, there can be no injustice done with regard to what the student has on record, such as, written assignments, tests, etc., and two, evaluating students in their attitude can be subjective but its not one teacher who is doing it. There are different subject teachers, subject coordinators and headmasters to monitor them and all of them cannot collectively go wrong.”
