Thanks to COVID, student exams for the senior secondary-level have become a maze
The CBSE Class XII examinations stand cancelled for 2021 on account of the second surge of COVID-19. For the health and safety of the students, explained Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A formula will be arrived at to “assess” the candidates and give them marks. Will anyone fail in such a situation? The question is rhetorical, but underlines some contrarian issues with the manner in which the country tackles student examinations. The announcement has been met with glee all around. After the CBSE Class X exams were cancelled a couple of months ago, the possibility of holding XII exams was already doomed. The “mood” for the exams was not there. The social media was crowded with messages for cancelling them. Myriad reasons were given for not taking the exams. The “results” will take some weeks coming. Those who were planning to go abroad for undergraduate studies or were ready for a fall term admission will be the most troubled. If the foreign universities do not extend the deadline for the results, they stand to lose a term. Will students who apply for admissions after getting their XII results have no problem taking IELTS or TOEFL or GRE? What about COVID and lack of vaccination?
Those looking for domestic admissions have to wait to see if there is to be a common entrance test. If not, how can a university assess a student on the basis of marks not obtained through an examination? What about admissions to IITs and medical colleges that require an entrance test? The circumstances for the now-cancelled XII exams would be the same for these tests too, won’t they? The top-of-the-class students would be the most affected by the contrived results and most of them would not want to waste more time by appearing in a re-exam in the future. If anything, the cancellation may have created an “exam-class” divide of sorts. There is such a brouhaha over 14 lakh students appearing in the CBSE XII whereas close to a crore appear in the state boards and nobody is talking about them. There is a National Education Policy and yet CBSE, ICSE and state boards dish out a decentralised fare. There was a need for a centralised decision-making in times of the pandemic. One question that escaped being asked is: Why were not the CBSE XII exams not held this February? They were held in February 2020, weren’t they, when nothing was known about COVID-19 and there was no vaccine either? Nearly 16 lakh students appeared for the NEET exam last September and none of them encountered a COVID-inappropriate situation at the exam centres. It is true that an exam can be deferred or cancelled if the circumstances are adverse. But to begin discussing the holding of the exams with the idea of cancelling them? Or, for that matter, what about vaccinations for and safety of students of those state boards intent on holding the examinations?