Update Jun 1st 2021 : Board Exams : Finally the fate has been decided and it has gone in favour of the students of CBSE. Hon. Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi, chaired a review meeting regarding the Class XII Board exams of CBSE. Officials gave a detailed presentation on the wide and extensive consultation held so far and views received from all stakeholders, including State governments.
He also thanked the States for providing feedback on this issue.
In view of the uncertain conditions due to COVID and the feedback obtained from various stakeholders, it was decided that Class XII Board Exams would not be held this year. It was also decided that CBSE will take steps to compile the results of class XII students as per a well-defined objective criteria in a time-bound manner.
It was also decided that like last year, in case some students desire to take the exams, such an option would be provided to them by CBSE, as and when the situation becomes conducive.
“We welcome the student friendly decision. We wanted to offer students an alternative option which is safe from health perspectives and at the same time give them the opportunity to get into the next level of education smoothly and early. This decision should give a boost to enrollment ratio in this pandemic. Since qualifications are relaxed for many courses we expect good enrollment”, said Dr. G. Kalaichelvan, Director UG Admission at VIT Vellore.
Earlier Prime Minister had held a high-level meeting on 21/05/21 which was attended by Ministers & officials. Thereafter a meeting under the Chairmanship of the Union Defence Minister was held on 23.05.2021 which was attended by the Education Ministers of States. Various options for conduct of CBSE examinations were discussed in the meeting and feedback obtained from the States and UTs.
READ: VITEEE 2021 Remote Proctored Online Exam
Fate of Class 12th Boards Exams-Undecided
No online options suggested
Update May, 24th 2021.
Several hours of high level meetings could not finally decide the fate of Class 12th students who were supposed to write their final board exams in 2021. The centre has earlier sought inputs from all the stakeholders – students, parents, teachers and others through social media. However, tweets against holding the board exams started appearing with #cancelboardexams much before that.
Sections of educationists, ministers at centre and state levels have different opinions and are split on the decisions in favour or against the exams.
The Centre has placed two options before the states as to how the Class 12th board exams are to be conducted in the virtual meeting held today.
Also Read : BITSAT Exam 2021
B.Tech in Data Analytics, Big data, Deep Learning
A total of 174 subjects are offered by the CBSE to Class 12 students, of which about 20 are considered major by the CBSE. These include: Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Biology, History, Political Science, Business Studies, Accountancy, Geography, Economics, and English.
A minimum of five and a maximum of six subjects of which four subjects are treated as major subjects by the CBSE. However, even if exams are undertaken for the major subjects it does not eliminate or lower the risk of infections.
The two options suggested by CBSE for Class 12 boards
Option 1 : Hold regular exams for only the major 19 subjects at notified centres.
Option 2 : Hold 90-min exams at the school where students are already enrolled.
Surprisingly even after one year of pandemic it seems the education system is not prepared to go online and/or explore alternate ways of assessments and evaluations like remote proctored online exams or open book online exams.
