Class 10 and 12 students, who are not satisfied with their marks assigned under the Central Board of Education’s formula, will be given a chance to write their board examinations in August, Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank announced on Friday.
However, Mr. Nishank cancelled his planned interaction with students, failing to answer their queries on private CBSE candidates, entrance examinations and the current CBSE syllabus. The Minister’s office said that as he is still in hospital due to post-COVID complications, he had been unable to directly interact with students as planned.
The Minister posted a short audio message on Twitter detailing the Centre’s decision to cancel the Class 10 and 12 board examinations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the tabulation policy which the CBSE is using to calculate the results based on internal marks and scores from previous exams. The Board will declare results by July 31.
“For those who are not happy with the assessment formula, there is no need to worry. Exams will be conducted for you in August,” said Mr. Nishank, adding that students’ health was the government’s top priority. CBSE has already said that those who choose to write the exams will have to abide by the marks they score, and cannot revert to the assigned marks under its tabulation policy.
Mr. Nishank had previously said he would be interacting with students, and invited them to send in questions, concerns, doubts and suggestions via Twitter or Facebook. A number of such queries poured in from students, especially private candidates registered with the CBSE, seeking clarity on their examinations.
Aspirants of professional entrance examinations such as JEE and NEET also wanted to know if and when their examinations would be held. The engineering entrance test JEE-Main is held four times a year, but two sessions scheduled for April and May had been suspended because of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The undergraduate medical entrance test NEET is scheduled to be held on August 1 as of now.
There is also uncertainty regarding the Central Universities Common Entrance Test, with questions being raised whether it will apply to all central institutions this year, including those like the University of Delhi and the Jawaharlal Nehru University which have previously used Class 12 marks or their own entrance tests for admissions.
Current students of Class 10 and 12 have raised queries regarding the syllabus for 2021-22, seeking clarity on whether the 30% reduction announced last year would continue, given that teaching and learning is still being disrupted by school closures due to the pandemic.
