TIME TO REASSESS

With class 10 & 12 board examinations either cancelled or postponed, anxious students, parents and teachers look to the various education boards for a roadmap

- KAUSHIK DEKA & SHELLY ANAND

ON APRIL 14, WHILE INDIA WAS being buffetted by a second wave of the coronavirus, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) decided to cancel board examinations for class 10 and postpone the examinations for class 12, which were scheduled to be held between May 4 and June 10. The decision was taken at a meeting attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.

Another pan-India board, the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), has cancelled the class 10 and postponed the class 12 examinations. The International Baccalaureate (IB) board has gone a step further and also cancelled its class 12 exams and announced that it will take the “non-examination route” in India. Several state boards, too, have either cancelled or postponed their examination or are contemplating doing so.

While these steps have come as a relief to parents who feared exposing their children to the dangerous virus, the resulting uncertainty over class 12 board exams has left students, parents and teachers anxious. Many fear a replay of last year, when the national lockdown was announced while class 10 and 12 students were in the midst of writing their board examinations. In June 2020, the CBSE had announced that it would not be conducting any of the remaining examinations and would evaluate students through an alternative marking system. “The lack of clarity is proving to be a source of nervousness and confusion for us,” says Advit Bajaj, a class 12 student of Delhi’s Prudence School.

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