Schools, parents split over in-person exams

NEW DELHI: How best to conduct exams this year, is the question that is vexing both private schools and parents in the national capital.

While parents of classes 9 and 11 students are reluctant to send them to school for it and want exams to be held remotely, schools are advocating in-person examinations, terming them more “reliable” and in accordance with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) directions.

The CBSE, on February 11, directed all its affiliated schools to conduct annual examinations in the “offline mode”, after taking all Covid-19 precautions. But parents are not for it. On Tuesday, a group of 30 to 40 parents and students gathered outside KR Mangalam World School in Greater Kailash-2, protesting the school’s decision to conduct in-person examinations for these classes. “The school had conducted exams online before the CBSE directions came. Why should our children risk their safety?” said a class 11 student’s parent.

School director Jyoti Gupta said, “The school is following CBSE directions and not taking any decision on its own. The major issue right now is that students are out of practice when it comes to writing for three hours. They have been attending online classes and appearing in online exams throughout the year. Taking all this into consideration, the school has also decided to give 50-50 weightage to both offline and online exams. If parents still have objections, then we can’t help it. We have no means to proctor the online exams.”

Some schools decided to give an option of online exams after receiving requests from parents, but announced incentives to those who choose the in-person mode. For instance, Bal Bharti Public School in Pitampura will give additional 10% marks per subject to such students. “We released a Google Form to ask students’ and their parents’ preference and 70% opted for the online mode. But the school has given an open offer since in-person exams are more challenging this year -- students have not taken any such exam throughout the year,” school principal Meenu Goswami said.

The Indian School in Sadiq Nagar gave parents a choice. Principal Tania Joshi said: “Many parents are still not in favour of offline exams. We have given them two date options -students can appear in offline exams either in March or April.”

Delhi parents’ association, on Monday, wrote to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal requesting the government to intervene. “At a time when coronavirus cases are rising in several states and there is a fear of a second wave across the country, what is the point of offline exams? In some cities, the administration has ordered schools shut again in view of rising Covid-19 cases,” said Aprajita Gautam, association’s president.

Recently, Pune administration ordered all schools shut till February 28 after Covid-19 cases increased again in the city. In Mumbai, where schools have been physically closed since March last year, the state board is yet to take a decision on the mode of conducting exams.

A senior Delhi government official said, “The Delhi government has already instructed all its schools to conduct exams in the offline mode, in pursuance to CBSE directions. The mid-term exams for classes 9 and 11 will start from March 20 in government schools. The government doesn’t come into the picture when the CBSE issues directions to its affiliated schools. Schools are bound to follow the CBSE directions.”