Students and parents in Maharashtra ‘storm’ Twitter against offline SSC, HSC exams

Meanwhile, the state education minister will be holding a series of meetings with several stakeholders to come up with various contingencies for the exams

With a surge in the Covid-19 cases in the city and the state, parents and students from across the state conducted a Twitter storm on Tuesday morning with #CancelBoardExams. Parents and students took to social media to urge government officials to cancel board exams and mark students on the basis of online or internal assessments.

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“Please do not expose the students and their near ones and risk their lives, by forcing them to give offline exams in this second wave of Covid-19 which is affecting youngsters too at a rapid speed!,” stated one such tweet.

Students urged all the boards to cancel Class 10 and Class 12 board exams this year.

“These are unprecedented times, and the government should treat the year as an exceptional one and mark students on the basis of internal assessments now,” stated another student from the city.

Meanwhile, the education department is mulling various options for conducting the exams in the current scenario. State education minister Varsha Gaikwad will be holding a series of meetings with several stakeholders to come up with various contingencies for the exams.

“Opinions are being sought from various experts and stakeholders to understand if there can be back up options in case the exam cannot be conducted on the dates scheduled. All possible options are currently being chalked out and explored,” said a senior official from the department.

While the HSC (Class12) exams will be held from April 23 to May 21, SSC (Class10) exams will be conducted from April 29 to May 20. Nearly 3.3 million students appear for Class 10 and Class 12 exams from the Maharashtra board every year.