My Experience as a programmer with CCE: PARIKSHAPHAL

I am Implementing CCE:PARIKSHAPHAL, A Report card software for CBSE school based on CCE guidelines of CBSE.

In October 2009, Our company SARMANG SOFTWARE implemented CCE: PARIKSHAPHAL report card software after introduction of CBSE Grading CCE. Since then we are implementing the software in various schools of Uttarkhand and around. Here i am sharing my personal experiences during the implementation of the software.

Initially Principals and Teachers of CBSE schools were looking for a software solution that would reduce the increased workload due to the new CCE pattern, that includes conversion of marks to respective weightage to assessment exams (10 for each Formative Assessment, 20 for summative Assessment 1 and 40 for Summative Assessment 2), conversion of each exams marks to respective GRADES, Making report card format, calculation of percentile rank of student for each subject, calculation of GRADES for co-scholastic areas on the basis of number of indicators selected for each section, storing all student related data like marks, student profile, student's Health details, student attendance etc.

We developed the package for one of our already existing client for which we were implementing report card software since last 4 years. It took us nearly one month to design the software and immplement the same for this client.

COMMON FORMULA FOR GRADES: First challenge we fought was creating a general formula for conversion of marks to grades on a given scale. This formala should fit for Academic performace as well as co-scholastic areas, each section have different grading scale. After a regress analysis we were successful in generating a common forluma for conversion of marks to grade on any scale(10, 5 or 3).

PRINTING OF REPORT CARD: After this, we found a challenge in printing the report card, which is taking at least 4 pages, the challege was to fit all indicators of a section on same page. Number of indicators for each section were varing from 5-15, if we select more indicators for a candidate, the page length increases and if we opt few indicators the page length is reduced. Finally we fixed page numbers for each section and set each block sixe to maximum possible indicators. One drawback of this approach is increased number of pages for each student report card.

PRINTING CLASS REPORT CARD IN A SINGLE CLICK: Now, one of our client ask for printing of report of a class in a single click, earlier for printing report card of each student, we have to open the report card for particualar student and give print command. But, it was a time taking process for a class with 50-60 students. We implemented the same, but we stuck at a point, first few report cards were perfectly right and the latter were crossing their page limit leaving more and more gaps on top of page and contents of later report cards were coming on other student report card. The problem was in our printing technique, now we set page height for each page of the report card and the problem was solved.

OPTION FOR LATE ADMISSION AND ABSENT: Initially the option of late admission and absent exists in the software but in such cases the final grade of student were falling down. We were calculating the grades on the basis of total marks obtained out of maximum marks for all exams, the maximum marks also includes the exams for which student was either absent or had late admission. We were actually including the maximum marks for which student was not accessed, which i think was against the CCE concept. So, we changed our formula of total maximum marks, include only those maximum marks for which student has appeared.


CO-SCHOLASTIC AREA INDICATORS & GRADES FOR TERM I & TERM II : Another challenge was to print the Indicators of both terms in Annual report card, It took a little time to get solved. The problem was in presentation of Indicators for each section.


ADDITOIN OF GRADE POINTS & CGPA: This was a big issue, it was easily included.

DIFFERENT EXAM WEIGHTAGE FOR JUNIOR & SENIOR CLASSES: In June CBSE introduced different exam weightage for SA1 & SA2 for junior classes, which again made us to update the basic algorithm. Earlier we were having same exam weightage for all classes, but now we need to change this strategy to exam weightage on class basis.

INTRODUCTION OF UPGRADED GRADES: Introduction of this section made us to change our design as the final grade of student have to be upgraded for one or two subjects having least GRADE. The upgradation was done on the basis of total marks obtained in extra curricular activitiees i.e. co-scholastic areas & coscholastic activities. The challenge here is if a student got same grade in each subject which one or two should be upgraded. Initially we were upgrading lowest first two grades, but later we found that the total marks of other subjects are less than that of the two subjects. Then we changed the algorithm to upgrade grades for lest total marks subjects. In this case if more than one or two subjects have same total marks, we are upgrading on first come first serve basis. (Langiage I, Language II, Mathematics, Science, Social Science followed by others).

I ENJOYED WORKING WITH CCE: PARIKSHAPHAL, THIS IS EVER GOING PROCESS, THE GOOD POINT IS THAT, THE APPLICATION IS BEING MORE POWERFUL DAY BY DAY.

Next I am coming with my CCE:PARIKSHAPHAL implementation exprience with my clients.


Have a nice time
Anil Mohan
Sarmang Software

CBSE and CCE: Increasing work load of Teachers and Principals

In the past one year, we have seen a lot of changes education segment in India, Especially school education, with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) announcing grading system for evaluation and optional board exams for class X and finally introducing CCE (Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation). It has now reached a stage where everyone's especially confused about CCE.

CCE is continuous & comprehensive evaluation, aimed at evaluating performance not only on the basis of end term examinations but on academics, co-curricula’s, sports etc. and on a regular basis.

The idea behind CCE was very simple - to create a system that does away with "Marks". Most schools in India follow a 100% Mark system where students getting 92% were treated as less equal than those getting say 93%. While some parents and teachers still claim that this system gave a clear indication of where the student ranked, the pressure to achieve maximum marks pushed few students to commit suicide and many others to be constantly harassed by parents and teachers alike. With the forced implementation of CCE this year onwards, CBSE, in its view, hopes to reduce the burden on students.

The new CCE guidelines divide the entire evaluation process into 3 parts.

Part 1 deals with Academic Performance in Scholastic subjects like Science, Maths, English etc. where Grades are given based on year long achievements. The academic year is divided into two sessions, in each session there are Formative and Summative Assessments (FA, SA). The school has some freedom in deciding the number of FA's and their weightage etc but the end result is that students get a Grade for each subject instead of a mark. So far, so good. What CBSE has also done is that instead of focusing only on the 5 primary subjects, it has increased the scope by adding 3 more subjects to the Scholastic part - Work Experience, Art Education and Physical Education. For these additional subjects, teachers can give grades and a descriptive indicator explaining the student’s performance.

Part 2 deals with Co-Scholastic areas such as Life Skills, Attitude and Values. For each of these, teachers are again required to give a Grade and a descriptive indicator. Schools can expand these, for example, Life Skills can include Thinking Skills, Social Skills and Emotional Skills. Attitude can be judged towards teachers, peers, environment etc. The idea behind this part of the CCE is to let students and parents know that its not just knowledge that's important, there has to be overall development during the school years of a student.

Part 3 of the CCE deals with Co-Scholastic Activities. The idea behind this part is to give simple grades based on activities performed / participated in during the year. This part is divided into two sections a) Literary / Creative / Scientific / Aesthetic Skills, Performing Arts, Clubs etc b) Health & Physical Education. Teachers are expected to grade students on their involvement with these activities during the year.

The exhaustive evaluation of a student is why the word "Comprehensive" is used in CCE. The only way of making this evaluation is if teachers keep records of student’s performance throughout the year, therefore the work "Continuous".

Now, it became a tedious process for teachers to continuously keep record of student’s performance and make calculation in conversion of marks into grades, conversion of marks to their weight-age percentage, calculation of percentile and many more in Part 1 of evaluation process. Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3, teachers have to give descriptive indicators to the students and on the basis of number of indicators grades have to be calculated on 3 point scale and 5 point scale.

Finally the work load of teachers, class teachers and school management has been increased. As a result most of the times teachers & school management are busy with working on CCE formats and calculation rather than teaching and learning. Many schools are struggling to create formats and systems for teachers to work on, teachers and school management are confused and exhausted.

We at SARMANG SOFTWARE, DEHRADUN www.sarmang.com have created a customized software package CCE: PARIKSHAPHAL www.cce.parikshaphal.sarmang.com that helps the teacher and school management to decrease their CCE work load by 90%. All calculations and paperwork in evaluation process is reduced to just entering marks by subject teachers and selecting descriptive indicators of student and final report card format is designed automatically. All the calculations and conversion are done automatically done by the system.

Where it would be possible for teachers to quickly evaluate and provide relevant indicators. The design of our evaluation system is simple, at the same time; it meets or exceeds all parameters defined by CBSE. The Software eliminates chances of errors and makes the whole process such that automating the CCE system would now be possible. I hope the software will ease the lives of many student, parents and teachers.

CCE PARIKSHAPHAL :CBSE CCE SOFTWARE: REPORT CARD GENERATION SOFTWARE AS PER CCE GUIDELINES

After launch of PARIKSHAPHAL: Progress Report Card Software for Schools in October 2009, SARMANG SOFTWARE, Dehradun has now came up with report card software based on latest Comprehensive and Continuous Evaluation (CCE) guidelines of Central Board of Secondary Education(C.B.S.E.); The software simplifies the task of preparation of progress report card by providing real time access of exam marks related information. Now, subject teachers just have to enter the subject marks into CCE PARIKSHAPHAL software and report card is automatically generated.

All the calculations required in report card preparation like conversion of marks into grades on 9 point scale, calculation of percentage of marks from formative assessment test and summative assessment exams, calculation of term totals, grand total, conversion of grand total to grade, calculation of subject percentile of each student, assignment of grades for scholastic areas & co-scholastic areas on 3 point scale and 5 point scale are done automatically by the software.

While the manual system takes more than 6-7 days in preparation of report card, the software does the same work just in 10-20 seconds with few mouse clicks. Student Personal Details, Student Health details, Attendance, Class teacher & Principal name, are automatically embedded in the report card . The system is more accurate and reliable as there is no chance of manual errors in calculation of percentage, term total, grand total, grades & percentile and assignment of grades.

The software is designed to run on any web browser, computer hardware and operating system. As it is client server based web application it can be easily accessed through any computer on LAN without any additional software installation on the client machine. All the records of student marks are stored in a central database. For security and authenticity of data separate login's for subject teachers & principal are provided. The software automatically takes the backup on quarterly basis.

The CCE PARIKSHAPHAL is fully customizable and can be customized as per school requirement, it saves precious time of class teachers and school administrators. Three different versions of CCE PARIKSHAPHAL are designed for Class I-II, Class III-V and Class VI-XII, in addition to this, special package for class IX-2009 is also designed as per CCE guidelines of CBSE. "CCE PARIKSHAPHAL license is available for outright purchase as well as on rental basis on annual/quarterly/monthly installment.

Customized version of PARIKSHAPHAL: Progress Report Card software for schools affiliated to ISC, ICSE, Uttarakhand and other boards is already available.

http://cce.parikshaphal.sarmang.com/