Vaccinate students, teachers, before conducting CBSE class 12 exams: Sisodia to Centre

New Delhi: Conducting the CBSE Class 12 board exams without vaccinating students and teachers may prove to be a big mistake, Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said on Sunday at a high-level meeting called by the Union education ministry to discuss the fate of the pending board and entrance exams, which were postponed in view of the ongoing second Covid-19 wave across the country

New Delhi: Conducting the CBSE Class 12 board exams without vaccinating students and teachers may prove to be a big mistake, Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said on Sunday at a high-level meeting called by the Union education ministry to discuss the fate of the pending board and entrance exams, which were postponed in view of the ongoing second Covid-19 wave across the country.

HT Image

The virtual meeting was chaired by Union defence minister Rajnath Singh and attended by education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, minister of women and child development Smriti Irani, and information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar. State education ministers and secretaries, CBSE officials, and chairpersons of state examination boards were also present during the meeting.

Though the meeting remained inconclusive, officials in attendance said that there was a “broad consensus” that the exams must be held, for a limited number of subjects and with a shorter duration, when the situation is under control.

Sisodia, who is also Delhi’s education minister, said the state government was not in favour of conducting exams in the current scenario.

“Families across the nation have suffered immense pain and trauma due to Covid-19. It’s time for the Union government to take a decision with respect to board exams, considering it has caused enough tension among our student and teacher community,” Sisodia said in a statement.

“Conducting board exams in these unprecedented times will be a big mistake on behalf of the central government. Administering board exams when the world is preparing for the third Covid-19 wave is irresponsible, and at a time when there 2.5 lakh Covid-19 cases a day in our country, our students, parents, and teachers will not be in a good mental state to sit for any kind of exams,” he added.

Sisodia said students of Class 12 should be evaluated using alternative methods such as those CBSE used for Class 10 students this year after their exams were cancelled last month.

“The central government should cancel the board exams if vaccinations are not possible, and initiate the ‘no-exam policy’ for students, awarding grades on the basis of their (students’) unit tests, pre-board exams, practical exams, similar to the Class 10 promotion policy. Students should also be given a choice to retake exams to improve, in case they are not satisfied with their results,” he said.

Sisodia said the Delhi government demanded that both students and teachers must be vaccinated before conducting examinations. “In such a time of crisis, the central government should speak to Pfizer, as it has already developed vaccines for children aged above 12, and acquire these vaccines for the 1.4 crore students (across all boards, all over India) who are in Class 12. Only after procuring vaccines and vaccinating all students should the central government think about conducting any kind of examinations,” the Delhi education minister said.

He said 95% of the students in Class 12th are above the age of 17.5, and suggested the Centre consult health experts whether the vaccine given to those above 18 can be given to students of Class 12 as well. “If the vaccine can be given to 17.5-years-olds on the advice of health experts, then the indigenously made Covishield and Covaxin should be given to all Class 12 students on priority,” he said.

“Once the vaccine is available, all state governments should ensure that all Class 12 students and school teachers are vaccinated within a week. In Delhi, we can vaccinate these two groups within two days,” Sisodia said.

The Centre has asked state governments to send their suggestions on the cancellation/conduct of board and competitive exams by Tuesday. “As envisioned by the Hon’ble PM, the meeting was extremely fruitful as we received immensely valuable suggestions. I have requested the State Governments to send me their detailed suggestions by 25th May,” Nishank tweeted after the meeting.

Emphasising that both students’ and teachers’ safety, security, and future are “supremely important to us”, Nishank, in another tweet, said: “I’m confident we will be able to arrive at an informed, collaborative decision regarding the Class 12th board exams and remove the uncertainty among student’s and parent’s minds by informing them of our final decision at the earliest.”

The Union government has proposed that the states conduct Class 12 exams only for major subjects, according to the proposal document seen by HT. Nearly 20 of the 174 subjects offered to Class 12 students are considered major subjects by CBSE. Board students take a minimum of five and a maximum of six subjects, of which four are considered major subjects.

According to the proposal documents, examinations for the major subjects can be conducted in two ways. In the first option, the examination for major subjects may be conducted at the “designated examination centres and in the existing format” like previous years and for the minor subjects “marks can be calculated as per the assessment scheme based on the performance in the major subjects.”

Conducting exams in this mode is possible only if the board has three months, which will include “one month of pre-exam activities and two months for the conduct of exams and declaration of results and another 45 days for compartment exams”, according to the document.

The second option involves multiple changes, including conducting exams at schools where the students are enrolled, reducing the duration of examination from three hours to 90 minutes, and switching to only multiple choice and short answer-type questions. The process, as per the second proposal, can be completed in 45 days and results can be declared within 15 days of exams ending.

The second proposal also said the examination may be conducted twice depending on the state of the pandemic in parts of the country. “The Class 12 examinations could be conducted two times by the Board. Wherever the conditions are conducive, examinations could commence from a suitable date. In the remaining locations, the examinations will start after a fortnight of the first phase,” the document said.