Pending board exams to be held in schools where students enrolled, result by July-end: HRD

New Delhi, May 20

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Students will appear for pending class 10 and 12 board exams at the schools where they are enrolled instead of an external test centre, according to the HRD Ministry.

The Ministry is also planning to declare the board exam results by July-end and evaluation process has already begun for exams which were conducted before the lockdown was announced.

According to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) officials, students will appear at their individual schools for the exams and not external test centres.

“Students will appear for the exams in their own schools and not external test centres to ensure minimum travel for them. Schools will be responsible for ensuring social distancing norms are followed and students will be required to carry their own sanitiser bottles and cover their face with mask,” a board official said.

The information was also shared by HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ in a live interaction with students aired on DD News on Tuesday night.

Usually, board examinations are held at designated test centres for students. This is to ensure minimum bias from schools for their students and to enable independent external invigilators to monitor the examination process.

The board on Monday announced the date sheet for the pending class 10 and 12 board exams, which will now be held from July 1-15 with strict distancing norms in place.

The exams were postponed due to the nationwide lockdown imposed on March 25 to contain the spread of COVID-19.

While class 12 exams will be conducted across the country, the class 10 exams are only pending in North East Delhi, where they could not be held due to the law and order situation in the wake of protests against the amended citizenship act.

The HRD minister said that efforts are being made to ensure that the result is declared by July-end.

“Efforts are being made to declare the result by July-end itself. Evaluation process has already begun for the board exams and will continue to be held simultaneously with pending exams. Teachers who are involved in the evaluation process will be exempted from delivering academic and administrative work for the tenure,” he said in the interaction.

The CBSE class 10 and class 12 board exam evaluation is being carried out from home. Further, the HRD Ministry had earmarked 3000 evaluation centres from where answer sheets would be distributed to teachers at their homes for evaluation and then collected.

MHA allows schools to hold board exams

The central government has today written to states giving exemption in lockdown guidelines to partially open schools for conducting board examinations for Classes 10 and 12.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah tweeted Home Secretary Ajay Bhall’s letter to chief secretaries of all the states and Union territories. The letter said:   “Taking into consideration the academic interest of large number of students, it has been decided to grant exemption from the lockdown measures to conduct Board examination for classes 10th and 12th, with few conditions like social distancing, face mask etc, for their safety”.

In the letter, Bhalla said that under the guidelines on lockdown measures, opening of schools has been prohibited and as a result annual board examinations being conducted by state education boards, CBSE and ICSE for Classes 10 and 12 were suspended.

The Union Home Secretary mentioned in the letter that requests were received from the state governments and CBSE for conducting board examinations and the matter has been examined in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

“Taking into consideration the academic interest of a large number of students, it has been decided to grant exemption from the lockdown measures to conduct board examinations for classes 10 and 12,” Bhalla said.

The Home Secretary, however, said that the exemption to conduct board examinations “would be subject to the conditions that no examination centre will be permitted in containment zones and face masks will be worn by teachers, staff and students mandatorily”. He went on to add that there shall be provision of thermal screening and sanitiser at exam centres and social distancing norms have to be followed.

“In view of the examinations to be conducted by different boards, their exam schedules should be staggered and special buses can be arranged by states and union territories for transportation of students to examination centres,” the letter read.

Universities and schools across the country have been closed since March 16 when the Centre announced a countrywide classroom shutdown as one of the measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.

Later, a 21-day nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, which came into effect the next day. It has now been extended till May 31.

The board was not able to conduct class 10 and 12 exams on eight examination days due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Further, due to the law and order situation in North East Delhi, the board was not able to conduct exams on four examination days, while a very small number of students from and around this district were not able to appear in exams on six days.

The board had last month announced that it will only conduct pending exams in 29 subjects which are crucial for promotion and admission to higher educational institutions.

The modalities of assessment for the subjects for which exams are not being conducted will be announced soon by the board.

The schedule has been decided in order to ensure that the board exams are completed before competitive examinations such as engineering entrance JEE-Mains, which is scheduled from July 18-23, and medical entrance exam NEET, which is scheduled on July 26.