Private CBSE students say new plan puts them at a disadvantage

Students in the private programme are those not enrolled in any school, but registered with the CBSE for the Class 10 and 12 board exams.

Class 12 students enrolled in the CBSE’s private, or patrachar, programme and those scheduled to appear in compartment tests for a second time opposed the board’s decisions to conduct exams for them, even as it announced an alternate assessment policy for regular students on Thursday. Several students in the private programme on Friday said the decision throws their futures into uncertainty, and demanded alternative assessment criterion.

Every year, students enrolled in the programme take exams with regular students and their results are announced together. (HT photo)

Shashwat Anand, 18, a private CBSE Class 12 candidate, said, “How can we predict when the situation will become conducive [for exams]? If the board has cancelled exams for regular students, why do we not get the same treatment? Most universities will start admissions as soon as Class 12 results are declared. What will we do then?”

Students in the private programme are those not enrolled in any school, but registered with the CBSE for the Class 10 and 12 board exams. Last year, around 30,000 such students were registered for the Class 12 CBSE exams. Apart from students who need to appear for a second compartment test, also excluded from CBSE’s new Class 12 assessment formula are those who filled the improvement forms in order to appear for the test again. Last year, 29,000 students appeared in the Class 12 exams to improve their scores.

Every year, students enrolled in the programme take exams with regular students and their results are announced together.

Child rights activist and advocate Anubha Shrivastava Sahai, who earlier filed a petition demanding that all board exams be cancelled due to the pandemic, on Friday tweeted that she along with other lawyers would move an intervention petition on behalf of private and compartment students in the Supreme Court.

The approved mechanism for CBSE includes a 30:30:40 formula, which takes into account a student’s performance in the last three examinations (the 12th pre-board, the 11th finals, and the 10th board) to settle at a score for the theory component of the examination.

However, CBSE, in its notification, said, “For private, partrachar and 2nd chance compartment candidates, etc., the examination will be conducted by the Board as and when the conditions become conducive.”

Several students on Friday tweeted with the #CancelCBSEprivateexam hashtag. “We too are CBSE students like those enrolled in schools. It should not waste our year,” said Prateek Raghav, another private Class 12 candidate.

Shashank Singh, 19, who completed Class 12 last year but applied to appear in the improvement exams this year, on Friday submitted an appeal in CBSE’s Preet Vihar headquarters. “Since CBSE will declare the results of regular students before they do for private students, universities will admit those who have their results in hand... Please provide equal opportunities to private students to take admissions,” he said in the letter.

CBSE’s controller of examinations Sanyam Bhardwaj said the board will try to find a solution. “We are working on this issue and will come out with a policy favourable for these students,” he said.