Monday, 24 May 2021 | PNS | New Delhi
After months of indecision, the Centre on Sunday took steps to build a consensus for the conduct of the pending Class 12 Board examinations by putting two options before the States during a virtual meeting chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in the presence of Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.
Sources present in the two-hour-long meeting said the Centre proposed that the States either hold Class 12 Board examinations in select major subjects, or hold the exams based on multiple choice single paper objective questions.
The Centre asked the States to respond latest by May 25 after taking a call and announce the exams by June. Several States, including Delhi, opposed holding of the examination at a time when the Coronavirus pandemic was raging across the country and also suggested that students and teachers should be vaccinated before taking the exams.
The State Boards will be allowed to take their own decision on the conduct of the Class 12 Board exams this year, depending on the Covid-19 situation, said an official of the Education Ministry. However, the decision by the Government and the CBSE overall, will decide the fate of other national Boards like the ICSE and IB.
There are approximately 21,271 CBSE schools in India and 220 schools in 28 foreign countries affiliated to it. A whopping 13 lakh students have registered for the Class 12 Board exams this year. There are about 2,400 ICSE-affiliated schools and annually 2.5 lakh students take the Class 12 exams.
Union Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Zubin Irani and Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar were also present in the meeting. The high-level consultation saw full participation of education ministers and education secretaries of States and Union Territories and chairpersons of State Examination Boards. Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren represented his State. In a series of tweets, Pokhriyal said the meeting was extremely fruitful and immensely valuable suggestions were received across the board.
“I have requested the State Governments to send me their suggestions by May 25. I’m confident that we will be able to arrive at an informed, collaborative decision regarding the Class 12 Board exams and remove the uncertainty from the minds of the students and parents by informing them of our final decision at the earliest,” Pokhriyal said.
He reiterated that the safety, security, and future of the students and teachers were important to the Government.
The Board offers 174 subjects to Class 12 students, of which about 20 are considered major by the CBSE. These include: Physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, history, political science, business studies, accountancy, geography, economics and English. A CBSE student takes a minimum of five and a maximum of six subjects. Of these, usually four are major subjects.
Sources also said that the CBSE has proposed two options to the Education Ministry for conducting the Board examinations for the major subjects.
Under the first option, the national Board has proposed that examinations for the major subjects be held in the “existing format” and at designated examination centres. And marks for minor subjects be calculated based on the performance in the major subjects.
This option would require one month of pre-exam activities and two months for conducting the exams and declaration of results and another 45 days for compartment exams.
Under the second format, which will take only 45 days, the CBSE has proposed that Class 12 students sit for the major subject exams in their own schools. The Board has also recommended that, under the second format, each examination should be of one-and-a-half hours instead of three hours.
The question papers should have only objective and short-answer questions. In this scenario, a Class 12 student will appear for one language and three elective, in this case major subjects only.
The marks for the fifth and sixth subjects will be decided based on the performance in the elective subjects. If the Board opts for the second option, then the examinations will be conducted in two phases. Any student who is not able to sit for an examination due to Covid will get another opportunity to appear for it.
The Education Ministry had announced the decision to cancel the Class 10 Board examination and defer the exam for Class 12 students due to the second wave of the pandemic. On May 1, the Board announced a special marking scheme for Class 10 students in its affiliated schools.
According to the sources, the entrance exams for the undergraduate engineering course (JEE Main) and medicine (NEET) will be scheduled after the Board exams are announced.
While Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia told the Centre that conducting Class 12 Board exams before vaccinating students will prove to be big mistake, Maharashtra Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad said providing a safe environment for the students was a priority.
Later at a Press conference, Sisodia said that several States rejected both options at the meeting and instead demanded that there be “zero exams.” He also said that “about eight to 10” States had agreed to the point about having students vaccinated before holding exams.
For holding entrance exams, JEE Main 2021 and NEET 2021 and others, the only solution is vaccinating all, said Sisodia. The country’s 1.5 crore students and 1.5 crore teachers should all be vaccinated first. “These three crore people must all be vaccinated first,” said Delhi Education Minister. “We must speak to health experts about whether we can use the vaccines available to us on students who are 17.5 years old.”
