Summary
Let the students do their job and let the authorities do their jobs, judges say
Central and state boards plan to conduct exams offline this year
The Supreme Court has refused to entertain a plea seeking cancellation of offline board examinations for Classes X and XII to be conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and several other boards this year.
An apex court bench headed by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar observed that such petitions create false hope and confusion all over.
“This creates not only false hopes, it creates confusion all over to students who are preparing,” said the bench of Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice C.T. Ravikumar. “Let the students do their job and let the authorities do their jobs.”
The plea had sought directions to the CBSE and other education boards, that have proposed to hold board examinations for Classes X and XII in offline mode to devise alternate modes of assessment.
The CBSE will conduct Term Two board exams for Class X and Class XII from April 26.
Chiranjib Bhattacharya, the president of the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, and Kalyanmoy Ganguly, the president of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education, have earlier said that conducting board exams online was not a feasible option and there cannot be any alternative evaluation criteria.
The West Bengal Higher Secondary exams for Class XII are scheduled to be held from April 2 to April 20 and the Madhyamik exams for Class X from March 7 to March 16.
Board exams had to be cancelled in 2021 because of the second wave of the pandemic. Students were assessed based on an alternative evaluation system.
Last updated on 23 Feb 2022
