State government announces ‘all pass’ for Classes 1 to 8

The Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday announced that all students of Classes 1 to 8 were declared passed and were promoted to their next classes without holding the final exams for the year 2020-21 due to the COVID pandemic.

This will be applicable to all government, aided, self-financing state board schools in the state. The Tamil Nadu Director of Elementary Education said that students of Classes 1 to 8 in all schools under the State Board have been promoted to the next class.

The circular said no student should be detained or sent out of the school.

Officials should inform all government, government-aided and private state board schools under their jurisdiction to promote all students from classes 1 to 8 and make an entry of all student names in the pass register.

The department also said that a decision on reopening of the schools and distribution of free textbooks will be announced soon.

The officials, however, said that the schools will not be reopened till the COVID pandemic was fully brought under control.

It may be recalled that the state government had already announced that students in Classes 9, 10 and 11 will be promoted without conducting any public exams.

The Board exams for class 12 were postponed and students are awaiting the revised exam schedule.

Tamil Nadu had ordered closure of schools since last year due to the pandemic. They were reopened briefly for Classes 10 and 12 in January this year and were again closed due to the increase in the number of COVID cases.

All the lessons and academic activities in the state schools are being conducted online.