Last month the Central Board of Secondary (CBSE) was looking for alternatives to conduct board exams for Class 12th. They had also proposed to conduct board exams from July 15th to August 26th and mixed opinions were expressed . But after reviewing the current situation of our India CBSE had cancelled Class 12th board examination on June 1st. Even the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations ( CISCE) postponed the ISC examination for this academic year. A panel has been formed to fix the evaluation criteria for CBSE Class 12th students, and reports are expected to be submitted within 1o days.
Soon after CBSE and ICSE announced their decision, state boards of Rajasthan, Goa, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Odisha had also cancelled Class 12th board exams. On June 5th the Karnataka government had also cancelled the Second Pre- University (2nd PUC) exam after analyzing the deadly condition of CoronaVirus infection. But Karnataka alone holds on to conduct SSLC (Class 10th) exam and announced that the exam would be in Multiple Choice Question (MCQ ) pattern. It seems like the exam will be held for two days in the third week of July and the first paper would be for core subjects ( combination of Science, Maths and Social Science) while the second would be language paper.
Other states like Punjab, Assam, Andhra Pradesh ,Telangana, Tamil Nadu are yet to decide and make the final announcement. While some states feel students’ lives are more important than anything else, other states have a hope that things will get better.
The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) has called off the Class 12th exam prioritizing the health and safety of the students during this prevailing pandemic. Students who registered for AIIMS PG entrance exam had requested the government to postpone INI CET 2021.
However, the government has not made any announcements regarding the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE-Mains 2021) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). Earlier it was decided to conduct the JEE and NEET entrance exam in the month of August this year. But now as there is a rapid spike in Covid Positive cases the Education Ministry will review and decide if the condition is favorable to conduct exams in the future.
So amid this pandemic, I hope the government will come up with a right decision considering all the aspects of health and safety of the students and staff.
