Need gap between exams: CBSE students
NEW DELHI/CHANDIGARH: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Thursday said the Class 12 exam schedule was wellthought out, even as a section of students and teachers complained the tests were not evenly spaced out and sought changes in the date sheet.
Board officials said it was difficult to have a schedule with uniform breaks, with students free to pick any five subjects, including a compulsory language, from around 200 on offer.
“Students have such subject combinations that science students take up one from the humanities and commerce subjects and vice-versa. So, no matter how much we try, some subjects might not get as many gap days as others,” a CBSE official said.
The country’s biggest school board released the schedule along with that for Class 10 on Wednesday.
Around 1.2 million students are expected to appear in the Class 12 exam, the stepping stone to higher education and career, that will run from March 5 to April 12.
Some of the tests are scheduled without a break.
For instance, the history exam is on March 20 followed by mathematics on March 21.
“We need at least a gap of one day for revision, relaxation, and breaking from one subject to another,” Delhi’s Ahlcon International School principal Ashok Pandey said.
Scheduling is also an issue for aspiring engineers. The joint entrance examination (JEE) is on April 8, a day before the Class 12 physical education test.
“The date sheet should not have been extended to April. I am worried as the JEE is on the day before the physical education exam,” Nikhil Mehta, a Class 12 student of Chandigarh’s St John’s High School, said.
Another CBSE official said the date sheet was drawn in a way that all the 200 subjects were covered by the first week of April, by when competitive exams such as the JEE begin.
“There could be some subject combinations where there is not much gap but the board also has so many other considerations while making the date sheet,” the official said. Both the CBSE officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to media.
Three humanities stream examinations, too, are without a break — psychology on April 5, political science on April 6 and legal studies on April 7.
Saumya Gupta, a Class 12 humanities student at Queen Mary School in Delhi’s Model Town, complained the date sheet was not balanced. “For some papers there is too much gap and for some there is none” she said.
Students also flagged a day’s gap between English on March 5 and physics exam on March 7. Mathematics and computer science exams have been scheduled on March 21 and March 23.
But not everyone is complaining. “The date sheet is fine. I have my Clat examination on May 13. I’ll have enough time to prepare for it,” Abhay Bhushan Bhandari, a student of Bhavan Vidyalaya in Chandigarh, said.
The common law admission test is held for India’s 19 national law universities. There was enough gap between science and physical education examination, Neeta Sandhu, principal of Chandigarh’s GMSSS-16, said. “However, those preparing for JEE might face difficulty in preparation,” she said.