The committee formed to suggest ways to assess Bengal’s higher secondary candidates met for the second time on Thursday but failed to arrive at a decision on the way forward.

Set up on Wednesday, the committee held its first meeting the same day. Sources in the education department said there was “no unanimity” at Thursday’s meeting.

One opinion was to hold the school-leaving exams on a smaller scale on digital platforms. The other was to avoid them altogether. The overriding medical opinion was that full-scale Class XII exams, which around 10 lakh students are expected to write, should be avoided. Those opposed to holding any exam on campus, even of a reduced duration, argued that this would amount to exposing the children, who have yet to be vaccinated against Covid, to infection.

According to sources, a member said many examinees were below 18 years and, therefore, fell outside the ambit of vaccination. Exposing an examinee, who is unvaccinated and, hence, unprotected, would heighten the health risk, the member is said to have contended.

According to the member, ensuring sanitisation of all the exam venues amid the second wave would be impossible.

“Although the member could not suggest what could be the alternative model, he advised against holding tests on the campus,” said an official of the education department.

Sources in the education department said that in April, the president of the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, Mahua Das, had proposed to the education department to take steps to get the examinees vaccinated so they could write the test in June.

However, the schedule of the exam was pushed back to July last week.

Another opinion that emerged at the meeting was to let the candidates take the test on digital platforms from their homes following the model being applied at the colleges and the universities.

The member, who gave the proposal, said chief minister Mamata Banerjee had in December transferred Rs 10,000 to the account of each of the 9.5 lakh Class XII students of government or government-aided schools to buy tablets or smartphones for online classes.

The member said students could be asked to write a test with the help of the device, said an official of the school education department.

The Telegraph had reported on December 23 that as companies expressed inability to supply such a large number of devices on time, a decision was taken to transfer the funds.

The headmaster of a school in central Calcutta said it would be difficult to find out whether all students had procured the devices as the chief minister desired. “Besides, it is not only about having tabs. One has to have data packs as well. Only last week, the houses of thousands of people were ravaged across the coastal belts in Bengal following Cyclone Yaas. The families include some of the examinees.”

During Thursday’s meeting, it was also proposed that the HS students could be assessed based on the performance over the past two years.

These students had last appeared for any assessment on the campus in March 2021, when they had written Class XI annual exams in a truncated way because of the pandemic. Class XII students returned to the campuses when the schools reopened on February 12 for a period of two months, to attend practical classes for the lab-based subjects and projects for the non-lab based subjects.

Saugata Basu, the secretary of the government school teachers association, said: “If the committee is deliberating on the proposal, we would say this is not a feasible idea. The syllabus has long been bifurcated. The syllabuses of Classes XI and XII are absolutely compartmentalised. You cannot assess a Class XII student based on the performance of Class XI.”

The committee is supposed to submit its report to the school education department on Friday. An official of the department said the report would be shared with the chief minister before taking any call on the way forward.

This Wednesday, a committee was set up on how higher secondary candidates can be assessed, a day after the Delhi boards scrapped their school-leaving exams this year because of Covid-19.