Ahead of the meeting of Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank with state education secretaries, students have started a Twitter trend seeking cancelation of Board Exams. While the Central Board of Secondary Examination (CBSE) had last month cancelled the class 10 exams, it is yet to take a final decision on the class 12 exams. A large section of students have taken to the microblogging site, Twitter, and have started trends using hashtags #modiji_cancel12thboards and #CancelExamsSaveStudents.
Students are claiming that holding physical exams amid a pandemic can pose serious health issues. They are also claiming that physical exams for a year of online classes are not the right assessment and have demanded promotion based on an internal assessment or online exams. Neither CBSE nor any of the state boards have canceled class 12 exams. Class 12 boards are considered critical as college admissions are granted based on the score.
More than 14 lakh students have registered to appear for class 12 board exams this year under the CBSE Board alone. Further several lakhs of students will be appearing for class 12 exams in state boards as well.
A plea has also been filed by lawyer Mamta Sharma before the Supreme Court (SC) seeking directions to the Centre to cancel the class 12 exams due to the ongoing pandemic. The petition stated that the results of class 12 students be declared based on ‘objective methodology’ within a specified time frame adding that a delay in the declaration of results will affect students while taking admission for further studies, the petition said. The plea had made the Centre, Central Board of Secondary Education, and the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination as parties in the case.
Class 12 students from across states and boards have also filed a petition with change.org demanding the cancelation of class 12 board exams. “The situation in India is getting worse day by day!! When there were only a few cases in the country they canceled the remaining board exams And now when the cases are at a peak they’re planning to open schools!!,” the petition had stated. It has nearly 6 lakh signatures.
Students have been demanding the cancelation of exams for a long now. Earlier, students had trended #cance12thboardexams2021 and #SaveBoardStudents.