Schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education will now have to follow a uniform assessment scheme from the next academic year. Currently, several CBSE schools follow their own assessment systems for students of Class 6 to 9. The CBSE’s new directive says all schools will have to follow a two-semester system for these students.

The move comes ahead of the CBSE’s plan to restore the Class 10 board examinations from 2018.

According to the new scheme, students can score up to 100 marks in every subject in each of the two terms. Of these, 10 marks will be allotted to “notebook submission and subject enrichment”. The students will have to take two periodic tests of 10 marks and the half-yearly written examination will account for 80 marks.

New report cards will also be issued to CBSE-affiliated schools to maintain uniformity. The report cards for Classes 6 to 8 will be identical with sections for half-yearly/yearly marks, notebook, subject enrichment and co-scholastic assessment, among other criteria. The format for the report card for Class 9 students will be the same as that of Class X.

The scheme aims to “boost the confidence” of students before they appear for the Class 10 board examinations. Moreover, since CBSE-affiliated schools all follow different assessment systems, students from Class 6 to 9 face trouble while transferring from one school to another. The new scheme hopes to ease this.