CBSE extends deadline to submit compiled marks of Class 12 students; Board to conduct exams for private students from August 16

: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Wednesday announced that it has extended till Sunday (July 25) the deadline for schools to submit the compiled marks of Class 12 students; earlier, it was scheduled to end on July 22 (Thursday)

: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Wednesday announced that it has extended till Sunday (July 25) the deadline for schools to submit the compiled marks of Class 12 students; earlier, it was scheduled to end on July 22 (Thursday). The board further said it will conduct in-person Class 12 exams for private candidates between August and September

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Officials Hindustan Times spoke to said extending the deadline is unlikely to have any impact on the Class 12 results, which the board is planning to declare by July 31.

Controller of examinations Sanyam Bhardwaj wrote to heads of CBSE-affiliated schools on Wednesday stating that the board is extending to July 25 the deadline for submission of Class 12 marks. “As the last date, July 22, is approaching and teachers involved are under stress, getting panicky and committing mistakes and sending requests to CBSE to rectify these [the finalized data]…CBSE is aware of the time constraints and problems faced by the schools and teachers. Accordingly, CBSE has decided to extend the last date from July 22 to July 25, 5pm,” wrote Bhardwaj.

The extension granted on Wednesday has raised questions about whether the CBSE will be able to declare the Class 12 results by July 31. Reacting to concerns, Bhardwaj told HT, “Generally, we take around 10-15 days to finalise the work [after marks have been submitted]. But since schools are facing issues in compiling results, we had to extend the deadline for submission of marks. We may have to work round-the-clock but will declare results by July 31.”

The CBSE’s revised marking scheme for Class 12 students, whose board exams were cancelled on account of the second wave of Covid-19, gives 30% weightage each to Class 10 and 11 scores of a student and 40% weightage to the internal marks secured by the student in Class 12. In order to check for inflation of marks and ensure standardisation, the board has implemented an elaborate moderation scheme and asked schools to strictly follow it.

After declaring the results of CBSE’s Class 12 students, the board will conduct in-person exams for private candidates between August 16 and September 15.

Private candidates are those who have enrolled in the CBSE’s private or patrachar programme and they will appear for exams along with students scheduled to take their compartment tests for a second time. On June 19, HT reported that CBSE’s alternative assessment plan for Class 12 students may put private candidates at a disadvantage.

“Their results will also be declared in the minimum possible time to avoid any difficulty they may face in securing admissions for higher education,” the board said in its notification on Wednesday, adding that the University Grants Commission (UGC) will be “synchronising admission schedule based on the results of these students as was done in 2020.”

However, the move has not gone down well with rights activists and private candidates. Mumbai-based child rights activist and advocate Anubha Shrivastava Sahai, who has been demanding a separate evaluation method for private candidates, said the decision to conduct in-person exams in August-September for only these candidates is discriminatory.

“CBSE’s claim of not having data on private candidates is incorrect. The data submitted by persons enrolling as private candidates can be used. Several state boards, including Tripura, Odisha, and Maharashtra, have come up with similar plans for private or compartment candidates. The move to conduct exams is discriminatory,” she said.

Darshan Kumar, a resident of Thiruvananthapuram, who will appear for a compartment paper, said, “My state is conducting engineering entrance exam on August 5 and results will come on August 25. We are expected to upload our Class 12 marks within a week to secure a seat. How can we do so under the current schedule? Students opting for several other courses will also not be able to enrol in any government college and will have to try their luck at private colleges if they don’t want to waste a year. It would have been better had the board considered our previous scores and evaluated us in a manner similar to that for regular candidates.”

CBSE said unlike regular students, whose schools have recorded results of unit tests, mid terms, and pre-board exams, there are no such records available for private candidates “based on which their assessment could be done without the conduct of exams”, thereby necessitating the need for in-person exams.