The Government School Teachers Association (GSTA) has urged Delhi Education Minister Ashish Sood to withdraw the show-cause notices issued to teachers due to the decline in the pass percentage in CBSE board Class 12.
In a letter, the association attributed the decline to shortcomings in the newly introduced On-Screen Marking (OSM) system, which it said was implemented this year without proper preparation and practical evaluation.
The association claimed that it had earlier proposed introducing the system on an experimental basis at first and expanding it only after evaluating its feasibility and results.
According to the letter, teachers and evaluators encountered numerous technical and practical difficulties during the assessment process, including unclear scanned answer sheets, incorrect loading of answer booklets, missing pages, and problems reading texts due to poor handwriting.
These issues prompted assessors to adopt “excessive caution” while marking answer sheets, resulting in more stringent assessment in many cases, the GSTA said.
She also said after the Grade 12 results, many students and parents complained that the marks were lower than expected, while many students faced difficulties during the re-evaluation process.
Pointing to the decline in overall CBSE Class 12 results nationally this year, the GSTA said teachers should not be held solely responsible for the result.
The association alleged that several teachers were issued notices and memos and were also threatened with making negative remarks in their annual performance appraisal reports (APARs), creating tension among the teaching community.
GSTA general secretary Ajay Vir Yadav said teachers continuously monitor the academic performance of students through remedial classes, extra classes and parent-teacher interactions, but the results ultimately depend on the performance of individual students.
The association called on the Minister of Education to treat all notifications and memos issued to teachers regarding Grade 12 results as “null and void” and called for creating a supportive environment to help teachers improve academic performance in the future.
