BENGALURU: The State government’s decision to suspend regular school for Classes 6 to 9 has not gone down well with private school associations. General Secretary, Association of Management of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka D Shashi Kumar said they have sought seven to 10 days’ time from the education minister to finish exams and wrap up the academic year. “The sudden decision to suspend classes may impact students’ assessments,” he added.
Meanwhile, a senior official from the education department said the State government is mulling allowing assessments to be conducted at the school level for Classes 6 to 9, and promote students of Classes 1 to 5 with no exams. “Exams used to be held for Class 4 and above only, but due to the rise in cases, we will probably not conduct any exams for these classes and allow schools to hold assessments at the school level only. We’ll soon fix a date for the same,” said a senior official.According to him, students could be assessed on their learning levels based on the unit tests held till now or by holding only oral assessments in school, by calling them in batches. However, revised guidelines would not apply to schools that are already in the middle of exams, the officer said.
Shashi Kumar said schools should be given the responsibility of conducting examinations safely, with all Covid protocols in place. “We also do assessments only — summative and formative. We want to conduct exams for Class 9 as it is very important to know where the child stands in terms of skills when she/he is promoted to Class 10,” he said.
He blamed the State government for “interfering” in the administrative decisions of schools. “The government is only a regulatory authority and cannot intervene and impose such rules on us. They can give us a week’s time to conduct the summative assessment and then close schools,” he added.