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Secondary Education Commission 1952-53 Recommendations

On the recommendation of the Tara Chand Committee and Central Education Advisory Board, the Union Government established the Secondary Education Commission in 1952, with Mudaliar serving as its head. This Commission is also known as the Mudaliar Commission and is named for its chairman.

The Commission conducted a detailed analysis of the secondary school system that was in place at the time and made several reform recommendations. Among them, the diversification of the curriculum and the establishment of several multipurpose schools were significant ones. The educational programmes offered at these institutions must to be designed to accommodate the students’ various aptitudes.

Everyone is aware of the negative aspects of the examination system. Committees and commissions have often called attention to these flaws. A major chapter of the Secondary Education Commission’s (1952–1953) report was devoted to examining the shortcomings of the current assessment system and outlining potential improvements.

Objectives, learning experiences, and assessment processes in school education do not appear to be being affected in the way that examination reform advocates had hoped after the report’s publication. The following are the secondary education commission’s main examination recommendations:

Reducing the number of external exams is a good idea.

By adding objective measures of accomplishment and by altering the questions, subjectivity should be reduced to a minimum.
In contrast to cramming, rational understanding should be promoted.
Setting two exams with a three-hour duration each on the same day is not recommended.

A good system of school records should be kept for every student to determine their overall “development.
The internal exams and the student’s academic records should both receive proper credit in the final evaluation of the students.
For grading student work in external and internal exams and for keeping track of academic records, a symbolic marking system should be used rather than a numerical one. Use a five-point scale: A (Excellent), B (Good), C (Fair and Average), D (Poor), and E (Unacceptable) (Very Poor).

There should only be one final public test for secondary school students.
At the final public examination, the compartmental examination system should be adopted.
The candidate may take a further exam if they passed the first one and want to qualify in any other topics.

In addition to the results of the public examination in various areas, the certificate granted should also include the highlights of the student’s academic records and the results of any subject-specific school assessments.