Cancel pending CBSE board exams: Sisodia

NEW DELHI: Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia Wednesday wrote to Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, urging him to cancel pending board exams, citing the spike in COVID-19 cases and high number of containment zones in the city. Sisodia’s letter came on a day the Supreme Court asked the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to examine if remaining board papers can be scrapped and marks allotted to students on the basis of internal assessment. The apex court was hearing a petition by a group of parents seeking a direction to the CBSE to scrap the pending exams. The same demand was earlier communicated by the Maharashtra government to the HRD Ministry.

Last month also, Sisodia, also Delhi’s Education Minister, had raised the issue in a meeting of states’ education ministers, chaired by the HRD Minister. In his latest letter, Sisodia said, “I hope you would agree with me that the board exams, particularly those of Class 12 are a high stake exam for children. Hence, subjecting them to take this exam in such an uncertain and anxiety-prone situation would not be fair to them. Further, in the context of Delhi, I can say that it would be extremely difficult to conduct the exam. “During the last one week, the daily number of cases getting COVID-19 positive has been rising and the total number

Mark students on previous internal assessment: Education Minister to HRD Minister

of confirmed cases now stands at 44,688, Sisodia said.

This is likely to rise to 5.5 lakh by July 31. In such a situation, if a candidate or someone in a family tests positive, he or she will have to skip the exam causing further distress,” he added. The class 10 and 12 board exams which were postponed due to the lockdown in view of the COVID-19 outbreak have been rescheduled, and are now slated to be conducted between July 1 and 15. According to Home Ministry guidelines, there will be no examination centre in containment zones. “Currently, there are 242 containment zones in Delhi which will rise further. Though, as per the current plan of CBSE, schools in these zones will not be used as exam center, there is no clarity on how a child from this zone will come out to take the exam,” Sisodia said. “I once again request you to remove any further uncertainty and declare that the exams in 29 subjects proposed to be conducted in July will not be conducted at all. For the results in these subjects, CBSE may rely upon the previous school based internal assessments which include project work, periodic tests, term exam, etc.