BSE Odisha introduces aspirational component in curriculum for class 9, 10 students

The Board of Secondary Education (BSE) on Monday announced a new curriculum for Classes 9 and 10 students as part of the assessment reforms.

As per the BSE, it has been decided to introduce aspirational components in the curriculum as per the directions of the Odisha government’s School and Mass Education Department. The new curriculum will be implemented for both Classes 9 and 10 of High School Certificate (HSC) and Madhyama (Sanskrit) courses.

“During the current session, it will be introduced in Class 9 and from next session i.e 2023-24, both the classes will have aspirational components in their curriculum,” said BSE in a release.

The aspirational components will have four divisions:

1. Book Review

2. Project Review

3. Co-curricular Activities

4. Basic IT skills

BSE officials said that a definite assessment procedure will be followed by teacher out of maximum of 25 marks for each of the above components. The assessment will be done in four quarters, 5 marks in first three quarters and out of 10 marks in the last quarter.

BSE Vice-president Nihar Mohanty said, “The aspirational components will be introduced for class 9 students this year and for both class 9 and 10 students from next year.”

According to Mohanty, an option of books have been identified for the book review like –best seller, fiction, classics, but it should not be graphic novel or autobiography. A student is free to chose any book for review, provided he/she gets a guide teacher and approval of headmaster. A class 9 student can also opt from a text book of class 7 or 8.

A student can now do a project work out of the text book subject but provided that they cannot chose the project work which they had selected in formative assessment. Seven activities will be under the co-curricular activities. In the first physical development activities, there will be games, sports, atheletics, yoga, asans and others which will be compulsory.

A student will subsequently have to chose any two activities out of the remaining six activities. The six activities are- literacy, cultural development activities, citizens training, leisure time activities and international and national integration development activities having several sub-activities which will be made available in the website.

A student, who has participated in any state or national level sports event, he/she will not have to opt for two activities as their evaluation will be carried out on the basis of another one activity.

Under the basic IT skills, students need to focus on typing skills, using web browsers, working with MS word, excel, power point presentation and internet. If any school doesn’t have such facilities, the students will chose other categories including book review, project work and co-curricular activities.

Certification: After capturing the marks on aspirational components through online will convert the same to the grades as below:

BSE officials said the grades will awarded to aspirational components will be reflected in the HSC certificate to be issued to the students. “Along with the grade, the marks secured in different components will also be reflected in the certificate against the codes of the aspirational components,” Mohanty added.

(Reported by Debasish Mohanty)