Extra classes, practice sessions to prepare students for board exams

Extra classes, paper solving sessions, yoga and meditation are among the few activities that education institutes in the city are resorting to in order to help prep students for board exams

Mumbai Schools and colleges that recently reopened for physical classes after a three-week shutdown have spent the last few days focusing on one thing--ensuring that their class 10 and 12 students practice writing well for the upcoming board exams.

Several colleges are making students solve question papers to ensure they have enough practice (Hindustan Times)

Extra classes, paper solving sessions, yoga and meditation are among the few activities that education institutes in the city are resorting to in order to help prep students for board exams, which are scheduled to begin in March this year.

“Due to sudden shutdown orders by the state government in the first week of January, we had no choice but to conduct preliminary exams online. Now, we’ve started inviting students to come to college and solve 2.5-3 hour papers to get them habituated to the process,” said Sobhana Vasudevan, principal, R A Podar College, Matunga. She added that many students are finding it difficult to even sit for three hours straight. “These students need an extra practice of writing and we are hoping such paper solving sessions will be of help to them,” she added.

Several colleges are making students solve question papers to ensure they have enough practice. “For the time being, students are being sent question papers on WhatsApp and they are asked to write/solve those papers at home and submit to the respective teachers for evaluation or suggestions,” said Rajendra Shinde, principal, St Xavier’s College.

As per a statement released by the Maharashtra State Board for Secondary and Higher Secondary Examination (MSBSHSE) in December last year, HSC oral exams will take place between February 14 to March 3, while written papers will be conducted from March 4 to April 7, 2022.

Similarly, SSC oral exams will be conducted from February 24 to March 14 and written exams will take place between March 15 and April 18, 2022.

State minister for school education Varsha Gaikwad has clarified that these exams will be held offline.

“We pushed the preliminary exams for our class 10 students by two weeks in order to ensure the exam is held in offline mode only. Students spent three weeks in January studying and prepping for the exam and recently appeared for their preliminary exams. Many have now asked for extra paper solving sessions which we are arranging in school on a weekly basis,” said the principal of a south Mumbai school.

At EuroSchool Thane, teachers have started taking small formative assessments which students are attempting. Model test papers given by various publishers have also been given to students to write. “Students of standard 10 are maintaining their writing practice by writing summaries, making flowcharts and mind maps. Regular work on précis and letter writing is being done,” said Jyotsna Mayadas, principal.

Some schools also ensured that students kept submitting written assignments even during online classes. “We continued to expose our children to writing as much as possible, even in the online scenario. Annotations and typewritten work was not accepted as submissions for assignments and the children had to write in notebooks by hand, take pictures of the pages and upload those as PDFs to the online portal for corrections and feedback,” said Nikhat Jafferey, principal Billabong High International School, Santacruz.

In 2021, class 10 and 12 board exams across several school education boards had to be scrapped due to rising Covid cases. Results for the class 10 batch was instead based on students’ performance in classes 9 and 10 combined, whereas, the class 12 students were assessed based on their performance in classes 10, 11 and 12.