Sunday, 19 May 2024, 10:08AM
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has cancelled class 10 and 12 board exams amid the pandemic, but private students — those who are either repeating the class or registered for improvement — will have to appear for the exams.
The board has directed that the exams for such candidates will be conducted from August 15 to September 15. But these students say they should be treated on par with regular students and that the grading system is discriminatory.
Abhijeet Rajak, 18, had appeared for board exams in 2020 as a regular student from Millia Convent English School, Purnea, Bihar. Though he got 64 per cent marks, he fell short of 3 marks to clear the physics paper and received a compartment. This year, he is registered as a private candidate.
“Even if the exams are conducted, the result will be declared only by October, which will rob us of the opportunity to take admission in the desired college as regular students will already fill up the seats,” said Rajak.
Sanyam Bhardwaj, controller of examinations, CBSE, told indianexpress.com that the exams will be conducted in a synchronised manner and students will not miss out on university admission processes.
“This year, around 22,000 students have been registered under the private category. Most often, these students are only looking for a passing certificate as a qualification. Despite all the concerns, the exams will be concluded by September 15 to make sure that the result does not clash with university admission or entrance exams,” he added.
Another private category student, Sourav Kumar from DAV school, Sector-6, Bokaro, Jharkhand, said that the CBSE did not inform about the exception of provision while announcing the cancellation. The decision that private candidates will have to appear for exams was shared 15 days after PM Modi had originally announced the cancellation of exams.
“For around two weeks, we believed that our exams were cancelled and we started preparing for entrances. Though the board is contradicting PM Modi’s announcement, we still have no clarity over the exam schedule. We have started getting calls from colleges for admission. If we get our results after November, our whole year will be wasted. This is a clear indication that the regular students will get ahead in life and career,” said the 19-year-old Sourav, adding that “private candidates should also be evaluated based on an alternative policy.”
Bhardwaj, on devising a marking scheme for these candidates, said that the board does not have appropriate data to promote these students. “Since these students are only registered for exams, they are not evaluated for internal assessments or projects. Regular students are being promoted based on all the assessments conducted throughout the year and past two years’ performance,” he added.
The Haryana School Education Board (BSEH) recently declared the result of the open school examination March 2021. The result of the candidates of the fresh category is declared by awarding the minimum passing marks of 33 per cent in all the subjects. For candidates who have re-appeared/CTP/STC in one subject, the result has been declared by awarding the average marks for all subjects to the subject in which the candidate failed.
CBSE private students are also demanding that they should either be evaluated based on the average of marks that they scored in all the other papers as a regular candidate or on the basis of their performance in class 10 and 11.
Sourav added that the CBSE class 12 evaluation policy has also indicated that regular students should be given grace marks wherever possible. “Since I was not able to clear one paper in 2020 because of 2 marks, shouldn’t I be eligible for the grace marks that regular students will be getting this year?” he asked.
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Sukhpal Singh Toor, education activist and president, NCR Parents Association, said that private candidates can be assessed based on previous records of class 10/12/internal/project and practical. “We request for cancellation of offline exams for CBSE class 12 private students and result be declared by July 31 with regular students.
He added that compartment candidates are those who have passed in four subjects out of the five in their previous attempt. Essential repeat/fail candidates also have passed in up to three subjects. “CBSE can easily provide general average marking or adopt any other criteria they deem fit to assess these students without conducting physical examinations,” he said.
