Why the Board exams should be Cancelled
India has taken one of the hardest hits in the ongoing pandemic. With over 2 lakh cases each day, it appears the country will take quite some time to come back on level terms. Many parts of the country have observed a lockdown closing into a month already. With the nation forced to pause, education seems to be a big question in everyone’s mind, especially the class 12th Board exams.
The education ministry of the country has had various occasions to discuss the issue but no solution seems to make its way. With this, every student (including me) is eagerly waiting for the 1st of June 2021 for the decision to be announced.
Approaching this problem from a logical point of view, and “my opinion” no solution except canceling the exams seem to make sense. What happens if CBSE decides to conduct the exams you ask? Well, the answers lie in the arguments below;
- Scientists have already warned us about the third wave of covid-19 hitting. Though we don’t have a direct indication, the third wave largely seems to affect children. Here, conducting the exams will be nothing but an invitation for further devastation.
- The number of students about to write the exams tops 1 crore. With such a large number comes proximity of the students with their family members and other people close to them. They then further branch the chain only to affect more and more people. As a result, even a single case can multiply its way to numerous doors in no time.
- The education department has made multiple claims regarding the measures taken for the safety of the students. However, with students comes a deeply rooted value for competition and comparison. What this simply means is, most certainly, students after writing the exams will form groups discussing the paper. That will further multiply, resulting in large gatherings, which is nothing, but an invitation to the virus.
- Now, coming on to the most horrendous claim, the exams can’t be online! Why you ask, well, many parts of the country don’t have access to the internet. Simply put, lack of infrastructure. Now that raises the question, How did the students study in the first place? Again, simply put, they couldn’t. That in itself makes the exams aimless for a large chunk of students.
Rumors have it, the board is considering an option of conducting exams for only an hour and a half, and are considering to conduct exams only for the so-called “main subjects”. In the first place, considering a few subjects not worthy of being tested, simply put as “less important subjects” is a shame in itself. Further conducting exams for a short duration does nothing to solve the problem except bringing down the probability of contamination negligibly.
This now brings us to the big question, How to evaluate students? Multiple ways can be adopted by the board, but what seems most feasible is to come up with a criteria to internally assess students. This approach may leave a bunch of unsatisfied students. For them, the option of writing the exams should be made accessible.
As always, I’d love to know what you think.
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