Tamil Nadu schools continue to await detailed guidelines on awarding marks

For government schools in rural areas which have not had any online classes or tests conducted, teachers are concerned as to how they can proceed further since students will have to seek admissions for class 11

A file photograph of students attending classes at a school before classes were suspended. Photograph used for representational purposes only

State board schools in Tamil Nadu are still awaiting detailed guidelines on how students of classes 9 to 11

who have been declared ‘all pass’ will be awarded marks.

While the announcement came in February, schools were subsequently shut for these classes earlier this month given the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the State.

“When senior students came back to schools this year, a learning assessment test was conducted by the School Education Department to see how much they had learnt through lessons telecast on Kalvi TV and other video lessons. Apart from this, there was not much time for us to conduct any exams for the senior students and both parents and students of class 10 in particular are wondering what will be done next,” said Patric Raymond, general secretary, Tamil Nadu Graduate Teachers Federation.

While the class 10 exams were cancelled last year as well and students had been declared ‘all pass’, the State government had then said that the marksheets would be prepared based on half-yearly and quarterly exam marks as well as their attendance records.

For government schools in rural areas which have not had any online classes or tests conducted, teachers are concerned and are awaiting guidelines as to how they can proceed further since students will have to seek admissions for class 11.

K.R. Nandhakumar, secretary of the Tamil Nadu Nursery Primary Matriculation Higher Secondary and CBSE schools association, said that while schools can go ahead and conduct entrance exams for admissions into class 11 if they wish too, they still need some sort of guidelines from the School Education Department on how to proceed with the same.

“We are planning to conduct an aptitude test for the students based on which stream allotments for class 11 can be done. This can only be conducted online now that schools are shut. We are awaiting guidelines on what parameters these students will be graded on and on marksheets to be prepared,” said N.Vijayan, patron, Unified Self-Financing Schools Association.

The head of a private school from Chennai said that similar to how marksheets were given the previous year, they have begun to collate the marks of all the tests that they had conducted online for the students and are keeping them ready. “We are expecting changes since not all schools would have been able to conduct online classes or exams. The Department should give proper instructions to schools on how they can go ahead and conduct at least a school-level exam for class 10 students to wind up the academic year,” he added.