New Delhi: Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ on Tuesday said that there will be no CBSE board examinations for Classes 10th and 12th till February next due to coronavirus pandemic.
The Minister said that the decision to conduct the examinations will be taken later.
There have been demands for postponement of board exams to May in view of the continued closure of schools.
“The current scenario is not conducive for exams,” Pokhriyal said but underlined that examinations cannot be completely done away with.
“Cancelling exams and promoting students without exam will put a stamp on these students. These students might face trouble in getting admissions at higher education level as also in getting jobs in future as they would be termed as COVID-era students. We do not want that for our students,” he added.
Pokhriyal said that the exam will be conducted offline as conducting online examinations would require each student to have “a laptop, reliable internet and electricity”, which may not be possible for all parents to arrange.
As decided earlier, the board exams will be conducted on a reduced syllabus. There will also be 33% internal choices in the exam, he added.
Board exams had to be postponed mid-way in March this year after COVID-19 outbreak. They were later cancelled and the results were announced on the basis of an alternative assessment scheme.
Competitive exams like JEE and NEET were also postponed twice this year due to the pandemic.
