Class 12 students welcome CBSE move to defer exam

The demands for cancellation of board exams had been raised from various quarters. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia on Tuesday appealed to the Centre to cancel the exams, saying they could contribute to a large-scale spread of Covid-19.

School principals and students on Wednesday welcomed the postponement of Class 12 CBSE board exams in view of the second surge of Covid-19 pandemic in the country, but questioned the feasibility of conducting exams after June, saying the board should come up with an alternative assessment scheme.

The demands for cancellation of board exams had been raised from various quarters. (Sanchit Khanna/HT file)

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Wednesday cancelled Class 10 board exams and postponed Class 12 exams. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The board exams were scheduled to be held between May 4 and June 14. The CBSE said it will review the situation after June 1 and announce the fresh examination dates for Class 12 at least 15 days in advance.

The demands for cancellation of board exams had been raised from various quarters. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia on Tuesday appealed to the Centre to cancel the exams, saying they could contribute to a large-scale spread of Covid-19.

Rihan Sharma, a Class 12 student at a government boys senior secondary school in Karol Bagh, said: “I am really relieved that the board has postponed the exams and not cancelled them. We should have proper offline exams in Class 12, whenever the situation becomes normal.”

Darshan Ram, a Class 12 student at Bluebells School International, said, “Postponing exams was the wisest decision in the present scenario. But what will happen if the situation continues to remain the same after June 1? It will delay the entire academic cycle once again. The government should have prepared some uniform alternative evaluation criteria for both classes 10 and 12 in the last one year, taking into consideration how exams were cancelled last time as well.”

Ameeta Wattal, principal of Springdales School in Pusa Road, welcomed CBSE’s decision of postponing exams. “The safety of students and teachers is most important in the present scenario. The board has given a window that talks about a review of the situation. It’s an extraordinary situation wherein we can’t take decisions every minute,” she said.

Many principals, however, did not agree with the demand for an alternative assessment method for Class 12. Tania Joshi, principal of The Indian School, said, “We cannot assess Class 12 students using some other method in the absence of any standardised way of internal assessments. Maybe some schools follow strict marking schemes in internal exams and practicals and others do not. This will be injustice to many students. Besides, Class 12 marks are directly linked with students’ college admissions. Many universities take admissions directly on the basis of these marks,” she said.

Some schools heads disagreed with this view. They said some “innovative” way of assessment should be explored. Awadesh Kumar Jha, principal of Sarvodaya Co-ed Vidyalaya in Rohini, said, “Schools should allocate marks to their students. CBSE should instruct schools to issue scores based on the best of the previous three years of school’s result.”

Education expert Meeta Sengupta said the board should try to come up with some “innovative” ways to assess Class 12 students. “The best possible decision right now was to postpone exam. But now the CBSE should come up with some innovative way to conduct Class 12 exams. They can call small groups of students in staggered manner and take exams in a different way,” Sengupta said.