Regarding the CBSE board examination of class 10th and 12th, several parents and their wards are in a state of confusion and uncertainty.
There is lot of falsification and confusions regarding suspension or conduction of rescheduled exams of these two board classes Once the rescheduled date sheet of class 10th and 12th Exams was released by CBSE confirming exams to be conducted in the period of July 1st to July 15th,it was also announced that students need not to go to external centers but will be appearing for exams in the schools where they are enrolled. Special arrangements will be made abiding by the norms of pandemic. Guidelines were given by government and staff as well as students were asked to take every precautions while moving out of home to appear for exams.
According to Home Ministry guidelines, there will be no exam centres in the containment zones.
“Wearing of face masks by teachers, staff and students will be mandatory. There shall be provisions of thermal screening and sanitizer at the centres and social distancing rules will have to be followed at exam centres. Special buses may be arranged by states and UTs for transportation of students to exam centres,” the Home Ministry has said.
There was lot of displeasure, and objection was raised regarding this decision. Several parents launched online campaigns hashtagged “cancelboardexam” and “livesoverexam “. Parents are not at all in favor of this decision and do not want their wards to go to examination centers amid this raising number of covid-19 cases.
Soon ,a petition was filed in the supreme court urging it to cancel the board exam due to the pandemic and seek an alternate way to award marks to students like it has done in its school in other countries.
It has been difficult to predict any improvement in the corona situation till date , watching this Himachal Board for 12th and Telangana for 10th have already cancelled their examinations and have given marks either on the basis of internal assessment or by maximum marks as reference point from already conducted exams previously in the session. Following somewhat similar pattern Punjab, Tamil Nadu has cancelled exams for their class 10th students.
Sources in Ministry told that after internal discussion, consultation has started with Union Ministry of Home Affair and Health Ministry on this issue.
In latest letter, Delhi’s Education Minister, Mr Sisodia said, “I hope you would agree with me that the board exams, particularly those of Class 12 are a high stake exam for children. Hence, subjecting them to take this exam in such an uncertain and anxiety-prone situation would not be fair to them. Further, in the context of Delhi, I can say that it would be extremely difficult to conduct the exam.”
“During the last one week, the daily number of cases getting COVID-19 positive has been rising and the total number of confirmed cases now stands at 44,688,” Sisodia said.
“This is likely to rise to 5.5 lakh by July 31. In such a situation, if a candidate or someone in a family tests positive, he or she will have to skip the exam causing further distress,” he added.
This decision needs to be reconsidered. Parents are paranoid about children contracting the coronavirus disease and fear believing that viral load of being in the same room for four hours could be very high.
Now that the Supreme court has asked CBSE to reconsider the decision, nation wide lakhs of students are expecting the cancellation of pending papers.
Soon CBSE will be sharing its decision early next week as June 23rd is the deadline given by the Court. So about scrapping of CBSE board exam, wait till the board settles on a plan of action and makes a decision. Official will be confirming the report soon.
By Rashmi Sharma
