The Jharkhand government on Thursday issued an order to promote all students studying in class nine and 11 without annual examination with immediate effect in the wake of continued closure of schools due to the Covid-19 induced lockdown in the state.

Director of state secondary education department has formally issued the directives to all districts, district education departments and state run schools in this regard asking them for compliance without further delay in the interest of students.

Harsh Mangla, director of the secondary education department said that the decision was taken to provide students who are being promoted to next class to provide ample time to prepare for their 10^th and intermediate board exams next year.

“The ongoing lockdown (health safety week) in the state has been further extended till June 3 but there is still no clarity if schools and education institutions will be able to function anytime soon in view of the second wave of Covid-19. The current academic year has already got expired on March 31 and two months have passed for the next session. Any further delays would pose problems for schools and students to prepare for their board examination next year. Therefore, government has finally decided to promote all students of class 9 and 11 to next class without any delay,” he said.

Mangla has also asked principals of all the state affiliated schools to finish formalities of promotion in their respective establishments at the earliest and facilitate online classes for the new academic session till the offline mode of schooling could resume. Earlier, the state education department had already promoted all students between standard 1 and 8 to next class and their studies have already resumed.

However, there is still ambiguity for those currently in class 10 and intermediate (12^th) over their board exams conducted by the Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC).

Notably, few days ago, chief minister Hemant Soren invited online views of parents, students and teachers on this issue for taking an informed decision. Also, during a virtual meeting of all states with CBSE and union ministry of education over class 12 boards recently, Soren urged authorities to not rush on taking the examination in view of the prevalent covid-19 situation.

Sources said that the state government said that they are likely to hold meeting with all the stakeholders in the first week of June to review the situation before taking any final call. “JAC board’s exam would depend on the schedule of central boards so that we can maintain proper sync. A meeting is slated to be held after June 3 for further discussion with JAC and other partners in this regard,” said an official.