State postpones SSC and HSC exams amid rising Covid-19 cases

The Maharashtra government on Monday postponed SSC (Class 10) and HSC (Class 12 exams) owing to the rising number of Covid-19 cases in the state

The Maharashtra government on Monday postponed SSC (Class 10) and HSC (Class 12 exams) owing to the rising number of Covid-19 cases in the state. While the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) exams will begin towards the end of May, the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) exams will be conducted in June 2021, said state education minister Varsha Gaikwad.

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The HSC exams were earlier scheduled to take place between April 23 and May 21, 2021, while the SSC exams were planned between April 29 and May 20. Nearly 3.3 million students appear for Class 10 and 12 exams from the state board every year. The exams are conducted simultaneously across 9 divisions in the state. A revised timetable of the exams is yet to be released by the department and will be out soon. “Keeping in mind the safety of students, we have decided to postpone the exams. While postponing exams, we also want to make sure that future education plans of students are not affected,” said Gaikwad in a video message released on Monday afternoon.

The decision was finalised in a meeting held between state education minister Varsha Gaikwad, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and officials of the state government and education department on Monday.

The state government has written to heads of other boards like the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE), requesting a similar postponement in the exams of these boards for students in the state. “We will approach them now that the government has taken a decision in this regard,” said an official from the state education department.

CBSE exams are scheduled across the country between May 4 and June 14. While ICSE (Class 10) exams will be held between May 5 and June 7, ISC (Class 12) exams will be held between May 5 and June 16. Representatives of the CBSE and the ICSE boards did not respond to calls and messages.

It was on January 21 that the state board had announced dates for SSC and HSC exams.

However, with rising infections in the state, several representations were made to the education department and the government from parents and schools, requesting authorities to either postpone exams, conduct them online or mark students on the basis of internal assessments. There has been a big jump in the number of infections in the state between January and April this year. While there were 2,886 cases in Maharashtra on January 21, Mumbai recorded 527 new infections that day. The numbers, however, rose to 63,294 and 9,986 respectively on April 11.

The education department held consultations with various stakeholders like parents, schools, educationists and representatives of various online platforms to come up with possible solutions.

Representatives of online companies like Google and TCS stated that conducting online exams on such a large scale would require a well-developed infrastructure, a process that might take two years. Since online exams were not feasible and as schools have remained online for the last one year, offline exams at a further date were suggested to be the best possible solution by experts. “During the consultations, various alternative assessment options were evaluated, keeping the health, well-being and future of our students in mind. Postponing exams seemed to be the most pragmatic solution,” said Gaikwad.

Schools said that the decision is a welcome step to ensure the safety and wellbeing of students and staff. “We are happy with the postponement. We hope that this will ease the stress of both teachers and parents,” said a suburban school principal.

Maharashtra is the worst-affected state by Covid-19 ever since the start of the pandemic last March.