NEW DELHI: The Centre on Tuesday decided to scrap the class 12 CBSE board examinations year, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who presided over a high-level meeting, declaring that “health and safety of our students is of utmost importance and there would be no compromise on this aspect”.
The government said that the evaluation of the marks will be made based on an objective criterion prepared by the board in a time-bound manner, but the criteria has not been released immediately.
Sources in the CBSE said that there might be changes in the evaluation criteria it had proposed earlier which had said that results of classes 9, 10 and 11, apart from internal assessments through class 12, will be weighed in for scoring the students.
“It has now been decided that class 10 results and internal assessment of class 12 only will be taken into account for preparing the final results and the detailed criteria will be released soon,” a senior CBSE official said.
It has also been decided that for some of the students who may not be satisfied with the results, an option to write papers will be offered when Covid-19 situation is conducive.
The decision on cancelling the board examinations by the Union government comes even though barring two states—Delhi and Maharashtra—all other states and UTs had given written consents for conducting the pen and paper mode tests.
The Centre meanwhile said on Tuesday that that meeting took place after a wide-ranging consultation, including first a deliberation presided over by PM and second by Union defense minister Rajnath Singh, signifying the high significance accorded to the issue by the government.
“In view of the uncertain conditions due to Covid-19 and the feedback obtained from various stakeholders, it was decided that Class XII Board Exams would not be held this year. It was also decided that CBSE will take steps to compile the results of class XII students as per a well-defined objective criterion in a time-bound manner,” the PMO said in a statement.
The PM underlined that while the pandemic has affected the academic calendar, the issue of board examination has been causing immense anxiety among students, parents and teachers, which must be put to an end.
“The Covid situation is dynamic across the country. While the numbers are coming down in the country and some states are managing the situation through effective micro-containment, some have still opted for lockdowns,” PM was quoted having said in the meeting.
“Students, parents and teachers are naturally worried about the health of the students in such a situation. Students should not be forced to appear for exams in such a stressful situation,” he added in the meeting where Union ministers –Singh, Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman, Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan and Smriti Irani, besides top officials.
“Health and safety of our students is of utmost importance and there would be no compromise on this aspect. In today’s time, such exams cannot be the reason to put our youth at risk. All stakeholders need to show sensitivity for students,” said the PM.
Meanwhile, following the decision on the CBSE class 12 examination by the government, the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations, country's largest private education board, also announced its decision to cancel class 12 boards (ISC) examination for this year.
On Tuesday, India reported 1,27,510 fresh COVID-19 cases, the lowest in 54 days, while the daily positivity rate dropped to 6.62 per cent, according to the data updated by the Union Health Ministry.
India's tally of coronavirus cases stands at 2,81,75,044 with the fresh cases.
ALSO WATCH :