Parents, educators, doctors in a dilemma
Everyone involved in the examination process, including students, teachers and invigilators should have complete vaccine cover, suggest experts
LUCKNOW : Thousands of Class 12 CBSE and ISC examinees, their parents, educators and doctors are in a dilemma over the physical conduct of board examinations, which will result in a large gathering of students who are not vaccinated.
Many don’t favour the idea of the exam amid the Covid spike while others want the government to conduct the exam considering the importance it holds in students’ careers.
From suggesting an alternate mode of exam to vaccination of all 16+ students and all others involved in the exam process, education and health experts have underlined many options that the government could consider before conducting the board exams.
Dr Gourdas Choudhuri, noted gastroenterologist, is all for vaccination of children, especially Class 12 examinees. “If the vaccine has been found safe and approved for 18+, bringing the age bar down by 2 years is unlikely to cause harm. It will increase their immunity level, and if God forbid, they contract infection, the impact on health will be minimal.”
He said, “A number of developed countries started inoculating children 16 years and above. In India too, we can carry out a special drive to target only the board examinees and administer them the first dose after carrying out a speedy trial.”
Former CBSE chairman Ashok Ganguly said, “The situation is improving and I’m sure that the boards will be able to conduct the exams safely in July and August. There is no alternative. Class 12 is the last phase of school education and students have to be assessed objectively and credibly before they move out. Class 12 cannot be equated with Class 10. International boards are not having much difficulty because they have a credible assessment system in place.”
“But we do not have such structured formative assessment system in place. Our assessment system is based on one shot terminal exam, which needs change now. If the situation eases further, I will prefer to conduct sit-down offline board exams with shorter duration so that our Class 12 students don’t face any barrier in vertical mobility,” he said.
Principals too are worried and do not have much of an answer to the complex problem. “We expect the government to take an appropriate decision in the larger interest of students,” said Carlyle McFarland, principal of La Martiniere College, Lucknow.
“The council and the government have to think about the well being of students, if they plan to conduct the ISC exam. Putting staff and students to risk will not be wise. Some medication or vaccine can be administered to all students above the age of 16 to make them more resilient to this virus,” said Aashrita Dass, principal, La Martiniere Girls College. Many concerned parents took to twitter to put forth their views using hashtag ‘no examination without vaccination. Anjana Saha, principal, Mahadevi Birla World Academy, Kolkata advocated a middle path like some kind of internal assessments and online test as the situation is not very good in big cities like Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai. “The government should have made provision to inoculate students of Class 10 and 12 in March itself. Instead, they vaccinated senior citizens. Youngsters who have to step out of their homes to pursue career were asked to stay home as no vaccine was available,” said Jyotsna Brar, retired principal of Welham Girls’ School, Dehradun.
Susmita Basu, superior principal at City Montessori School,
Lucknow opined, “These examinations will definitely be held keeping Covid protocols in place. The past year has prepared all schools well in this direction. This is indeed a challenging period in the history of board examinations. Against the backdrop of the second wave of Covid, we also see the absolute necessity of having a full-fledged Class 12 exam.”
Educationist and career consultant, Dr Amrita Dass said: “Everyone involved in the examination process, including students, teachers and invigilators should have complete vaccine cover.” She said, “Class 12 exams are critical for students’ further academic journey and career prospects. Quality of assessment is important: MCQs just test facts. We also have to test students’ conceptual knowledge and their ability to apply the same. As students are required to go to a location, which has been sanitised as per to Covid protocols, for writing their papers, there’s no point in reducing the exam duration from 3 hours to 1.5 hours.”
“Students should appear for exams in their schools after proper sanitization of the premises. The invigilators can be external. However, any new norms regarding assessment would have to be aligned with the requirements of the higher education bodies and universities,” she said. “As the board exam results will obviously be delayed, there has to be strong networking with universities to prevent students from losing a year. The university deadlines for accepting applications will have to be extended accordingly,” added Dass.
Class 12 is the last phase of school education and students have to be assessed objectively and credibly before they move out.
ASHOK GANGULY , Former CBSE chairman