‘No clarity over Maths retest stressful for us’

THE UNION HRD MINISTRY HAS SAID THE CLASS 10 MATHS RETEST WILL BE HELD FOR DELHINCR STUDENTS IN JULY ONLY IF REQUIRED

NEW DELHI: The Class 10 students appearing for CBSE examinations this year seem to have drawn the short straw.

The Class 10 students of 2018 are the first batch appearing for their CBSE Board examination since it was made compulsory after a gap of nine years. And now they are staring at the prospect of having to take the ‘dreaded’ Mathematics exam twice.

The Union human resources ministry on Friday said that the CBSE was deciding if a retest of Mathematics examination for Class 10 students needs to happen. If the retest does happen, then it will only be for the National Capital Region and Haryana and it will happen in July.

Many students, parents and teachers have been left wondering as to how they will choose their streams in Class 11, when the results be declared and when will the next academic session begin. Most schools allow students to opt for one of the three streams of study in Class 11 — Science, Commerce or Humanities — based on their scores in the Class 10 board exams. A good score overall, and in Mathematics particularly, is needed for students opting for the Science or Commerce streams.

Anil Swarup, secretary, Union ministry of human resource development, on Friday said they would take a final decision regarding the Class 10 mathematics retest in the next 15 days. He added that the decision was taken “so that children’s own schedules are not upset.”

Most school principals pointed out how the delay would spell trouble for schools. Jyoti Arora, principal of Mount Abu Public School, said that while they may start the stream selection process based on pre-board results, the finalisation happens only after the board results, especially for those students who fall on the borderline. “Classes officially start from July 1. We usually finish the stream selection before that,” she explained.

The principal of a government school added that admission to Class 11 and stream selection is based on board results and everything usually happens on July 1.

Some students, like Sejal Sekhri, of Delhi Public School Gurgaon, said having that no clarity was stressful.

“This is really stressful. We have no clarity. How will we get admitted to Class 11? How will we select our streams? The earlier batch did not have compulsory board exams, and the next batch will have reduced syllabus. We, on the other hand, may have to attempt the maths exam twice,” she said.

Sadhna Bhalla, the current chairperson of the National Progressive Schools Conference, however, pointed out that the Centre had said that it was uncertain if students would have to attempt the maths paper again at all. “I think that at this point, as they said, they are still investigating. But July will be too late. If a retest is to be done, it should be done now,” she said.