New Delhi: Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ has asked states to start the evaluation process for board exam answer sheets, and help the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to do so as well.
The message, according to an HRD ministry statement Tuesday, was issued in a video call with the education ministers of 22 states and secretaries from 14 states and union territories.
“The minister appealed to all states to start the process of evaluation of answer sheets of board exams and facilitate CBSE to evaluate answer sheets of the students in their respective states,” the ministry said.
The evaluation of board exam answer sheets for various state boards and the CBSE has been stuck because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown.
Schools and colleges across India have been shut since mid-March, in a bid to check the spread of coronavirus. They will remain closed until 3 May, when the nationwide lockdown that began 25 March is scheduled to end. The lockdown also interrupted the board exam schedule, with many papers yet to be held.
The meeting Tuesday was aimed at addressing various education-related concerns of states about board exams, evaluation, and the start of the new academic session. ThePrint had earlier reported that the minister would address states after 14 April, when the first phase of the lockdown was supposed to end, to take stock of the situation.
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Safety guidelines for schools
The matters discussed during the meeting included coming up with safety guidelines for the reopening of schools after the lockdown, with the HRD minister telling states to prepare them, a ministry source privy to the meeting said.
Once the lockdown ends, the source said, schools will have to follow certain safety measures, like maintaining distance between rows to avoid physical contact among students, making hand sanitisers available at various points in schools, and running classes in shifts.
“For the schools to reopen they will have to follow social-distancing measures. Individual states will have to work on a model,” the source said.
Another subject discussed was ensuring the availability of textbooks for the next academic session. Despite the lockdown, the new academic session has begun in schools through online classes, but students hadn’t been able to access textbooks.
Pokhriyal informed states that, on the request of the HRD Ministry, the Ministry of Home Affairs had relaxed lockdown rules to open book stores.
Sisodia suggests cutting 2020-21 syllabus
When the discussion veered towards the pending board exams, Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia said Class 10 and 12 students should be promoted on the basis of internal assessment, saying the conduct of the remaining papers was “not possible in the current scenario”.
The syllabus for academic session 2020-21, he added, should be reduced by 30 per cent and entrance exams like JEE and NEET based on the shrunk coursework.
This was among several suggestions offered by education ministers from around the country.
With inputs by Aneesha Bedi
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