The Central Board of Secondary Education will inform the Supreme Court of its position on pending board examinations on Tuesday, and let the Court take a final call on cancellation, according to senior officials at the Human Resource Development Ministry.
The SC is hearing a plea by a group of parents of CBSE students who wish the exams to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Last week, the CBSE counsel said the Board was in the process of taking a decision on the issue and would apprise the court at the next hearing on June 23 .
Also read: HRD Ministry, CBSE considering options to postpone, cancel Board exams
“The matter is in the court. CBSE will communicate its position to the court in a closed cover, and then the court will decide,” a senior official told The Hindu .
The CBSE is likely to offer an alternative assessment methodology in lieu of holding examinations, such as using internal assessment scores, or the average marks from already completed papers. Another possibility could be to allow students who wish to write the examination and improve their scores to do so at a later date.
The annual board examinations were suspended mid-way in March due to COVID-19, leaving Class 12 students across the country with pending papers.
Also read: CBSE board exams to be held in schools where students enrolled, result by July-end
Class 12 students in northeast Delhi also have pending papers, as their examinations had been previously disrupted by violence in the area.
The pending examinations had been rescheduled to be held in the first two weeks of July, with CBSE increasing the number of centres from 3,000 to over 13,000 to allow for minimal travel and maximum social distancing.
“In March, we had thought July would be a safe time to hold exams. But the situation has only gotten worse, and it is changing everyday,” said a senior Ministry official, downplaying the chance of further postponement of the examinations, given the uncertainty of the course of the pandemic. Several State governments, including Delhi and Maharashtra, have also communicated their unwillingness to risk the health of students and staff by conducting the examination.
The HRD Ministry has been hesitant to announce a complete cancellation of board examinations because of the fall-out on professional entrance examinations such as JEE and NEET , needed for admission to engineering and medical courses, which had also been rescheduled for the second half of July.
Already, a section of students has been calling for those examinations to be cancelled as well.
HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank has been holding consultations with the National Testing Agency, which conducts these entrance exams, as well as with the University Grants Commission and the All India Council for Technical Education.
With regard to the Class 10 and 12 examinations conducted by the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), students have been given an option to either write their pending examinations physically or opt for alternative grading.
On Monday, the Bombay High Court extended the deadline for the Council to declare its alternative methodology till June 25, after which students can make an informed choice on whether or not to write the examinations which begin on July 1. Several students have said their schools have already forced them to choose.
The court also directed the Union and State government to apprise the court on their stand on conducting the examinations as per the revised schedule. A senior HRD Ministry official said it has been made clear that the Centre does not administer the CISCE, which is an autonomous body.
The Bombay High Court is hearing a parent’s petition to cancel the ICSE and ISC examinations, and a number of similar-minded parents have joined the plea. On Monday, other parents intervened to say some students are willing to write the pending papers, having put in hard work to prepare, and that any decision taken by the State or by the Council to cancel the examinations would be detrimental to their interest.
There is a pending proceeding before the Supreme Court on the same issue. The matter is scheduled to be heard on June 24.
(Inputs from Sonam Saigal in Mumbai.)
