Spiking of marks to stop, but moderation policy to continue

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the state education boards will stop spiking of marks from next year. However, they will carry on with the moderation policy and the awarding of grace marks.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has conveyed the decision to CBSE and the state boards.

The boards give grace marks to students who need just a few marks to pass. However, they indulge in spiking of marks when a question paper is of unusual difficulty or when the level of questions in different sets of papers is not the same. This is done to achieve pass percentage parity with previous years’ results.