Despite countless protests by students across the state of Odisha, the Class 12 Board Exams 2022 will be held offline at schools across the state. The same was reiterated by Odisha Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra. He further advised students to start preparing for the upcoming board exams to be conducted in the pen-and-paper format. Of course, these exams will be held by following all the COVID-19 regulations and norms prescribed by the state government.
Exams in Offline Mode – Total Contrast from Last Year
Last year, not only Odisha but most central and state education boards were compelled to cancel their Class 10 and 12 exams. Instead, they had to curate alternate and justifiable criteria for evaluating students. It seems that the state government does not want to repeat this pattern in 2022. Moreover, the country has begun recovering from the third wave of COVID-19. So, the situation is fairly conducive for the government to hold full-fledged offline exams.
Incessant Protests by Students
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought tremendous uncertainty and chaos in the academics of students for the past two years. Schools that opened-up post-second-wave had to again shut owing to the third wave. So effectively, there were only two months of dedicated offline lectures and learning. Online education was active for the most part of the current academic year 2021-22. This mode invariably introduced several shortfalls and hurdles in learning.
Driving forward this message, students began incessantly protesting within the state, against offline exams. However, their opinions are not entirely united. While a lot of students oppose offline board exams, there are others who are in support of this format.
Divided Opinions about Offline Mode
There seems to be a divide in opinions whereby students have been divided into sections – 1. Supporting offline board exams and 2. Demanding their cancellation. To communicate the former opinion, some students in Odisha staged a demonstration. During this demonstration, it was communicated that alternate evaluation criteria may further disrupt the existing education system.
Last year, Class 10 and 12 students were evaluated based on their previous-year academic performance. While this was an exceptional case due to the second wave of COVID-19, the Odisha government must conduct offline exams for the academic year 2021-22. So that there is fair and justified evaluation of students. To their delight, the state government has decided on going ahead with offline board exams for Class 10 and 12 students.
