Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in Indore led others nationwide and sent a proposal to the board requesting postponing the Term-II examinations for Class X and Class XII, arguing that it is unrealistic to complete 50 per cent of syllabus in three months.
With Covid-19 third wave of Omicron variant, schools have been shut again and even high school and higher secondary school students are now just attending online classes.
While online classes is an essential way to compensate for offline classes, they are not that effective. Board examinations are conducted covering a two-year course, i.e. Class IX and Class X in High School and Class XI and Class XII in Higher Secondary School examinations.
With hardly any offline classes in 2020-21 and 2021-22, students have barely grasped the concept of the courses, which forms an essential base for further studies.
CBSE Term-II exams to be or not to be?
Sanyam Bhardwaj, controller of CBSE exams, said, “If the situation gets worse, only then the second term of examinations will not be held.” He added that in such a condition, marks obtained in the first phase will be considered final and based on them, the results will be prepared.
“But if such a situation does not arise and the second term is held successfully, the final result will be decided on the basis of 50-50 per cent marks of these two terms," Bhardwaj said.
Term-I or Term-II for results?
CBSE Term-I was held in November-December 2021 and the second phase is supposed to take place in March-April 2022.
This year the format has changed and the result for Term 1 would only be a scorecard detailing how many marks the student has received. There is no grading and the formats have to be revised accordingly.
The board will not announce results as pass, fail or essential repeat at the end of term 1. The final result will be available at the end of term 2 exams.
In Term 1 exam, students were asked only objective-type questions but the second term exam will have both objective and subjective type questions.
Before the Term-1 exam ends, schools were instructed to complete practical exams, internal assessment and project work.
What happens if Term-I becomes final?
Schools, students and teachers are less inclined towards Term-I becoming the final results. Why? Merit students scoring over 90 per cent are now getting 70 and 75 per cent in Term 1 examination.
More than one and a half years of online classes is showing its after-effects and not just for those who didn’t attend the classes but for everyone including the merit students. Most students had a tough time to even getting passing marks in CBSE term 1 examination, be it Class X or Class XII.
The objective questions are definitely challenging. “Students who scored 90 per cent and above are now only able to answer 70 to 75 per cent questions correctly, and similarly, other students scoring above 80 per cent with offline classes are now further down to 60 percentile,” UK Jha, chairperson of Indore Sahodaya Complex of CBSE schools, said.
Parents split over holding offline or online exams
Parents in Indore are divided over holding offline or online examination. “It’s a complicated situation, because we need students to be safe, but their education in Class X and Class XII is equally important,” Ramakhant Sharma, a parent representative said. He added that for younger kids, offline examinations are definitely not worth the risk. “My daughter is in Class XII, vaccinated, but still, I worry if she will get sick. On the other hand, we could see the change in her in the little time school was running offline again recently,” Ruby Francis, a parent, said.
MPBSE will be offline, decisions after Jan 31
Madhya Pradesh Board Secondary Education (MPBSE) Class V, VIII, X and XII examinations will be offline in the state, but due to the circumstances of Corona, their dates can be extended. This was confirmed in an announcement by school education minister Inder Singh Parmar.
It has further been informed that the new schedule of examinations may be announced soon. According to the assessment of the government, the possibility of the peak of the third wave of corona will be in the state on February 1.
It is possible that there are more than 20,000 corona patients reported in a day in the state. Due to this, the decision to open schools in the state will now be taken on January 31.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will hold a weekly review meeting of Corona on Jan 21, and a decision would be taken on opening schools after the meeting.
The graph of corona in the state is falling rapidly. In such a situation, the government can take a decision in the review meeting on January 31. However, it is possible that the government will postpone the decision to open the school for the time being, because of rising Covid-19 omicron cases in kids in the state.
