India

Covid-19: Declare Class 12 results by July 31, Supreme Court tells states

Supreme Court directed the States to implement an internal assessment scheme within 10 days.

The Supreme Court on Thursday asked state boards to declare the results for class 12 exams by 31 July. The internal assessment scheme needs to be formulated within 10 days, the top court said.

The CBSE class 12 exam results are scheduled to be declared in the same timeline.

Further, the SC stated that it is impossible for states across the country to have a uniform scheme for the assessment of class 12 students after the cancellation of exams.

A vacation bench comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari observed that each board is autonomous and hence the court cannot direct for the adoption of such a protocol.

“We are not going to direct uniform scheme. Each board is different and autonomous. We cannot direct uniform scheme across India,” said the bench.

The statement came while the court was hearing a petition seeking the cancellation of state-level board exams.

While 21 states have already done away with the exams this year and some are already done conducting, few boards are planning to organise them as the Covid-19 situation eases.

Warning to Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh has said that it will hold class 12 exams while Karnataka is planning to conduct class 10 exams. Kerala, which has conducted class 12 exams already, is planning to hold tests for class 11 student.

Issuing a stern warning, the top court has told the Andhra government to finalise the logistics for class 12 state board exams by Friday at 2 pm.

It also said that the state would be held responsible “if there is even one fatality”.

“If there is even one fatality we may order compensation amounting to 1 crore. When other boards have cancelled the exams, why does Andhra Pradesh want to show it is different,” it said.

The court also flagged the issue of space available for the exercise.

In an affidavit filed earlier this week the Andhra Pradesh government had said 15 to 18 students would be seated in a room to ensure social distancing is observed.

“In your affidavit, you said students will be divided — 15 to 18 students seated in one room. Have you worked out the number of rooms needed? You require 34,634 rooms. Where will you get so many rooms? Are you going to have exams in the open?” the court asked.

The state said 34,000 rooms had been identified and around 50,000 teaching and non-teaching staff had been vaccinated for the purpose of conducting exams.

Plea against cancellation

The SC on Tuesday dismissed petitions challenging the decisions of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Council for the Indian School Certificate Exam (CISCE) to cancel class 12 exams.

The court held that there is no need to interfere with the evaluation scheme devised by CBSE and CISCE. The court also underlined that the scheme takes into account the concerns of all students.

On 17 June, CBSE and CISCE had informed the apex court that they will use the average of three years’ performance, including class 10 and class 11, for assessing results of 1.55 million class 12 students.

The CBSE will assign 30% weightage each to performance in class 10 and class 11, and 40% to class 12 performance in the unit, mid-term and pre-board exams.

Source
Mint

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button