After the cancellation of CBSE Class 12 board exams, students are now flooding the twitter accounts of Vijay Inder Singla and Captain Amarinder Singh with requests to cancel the Punjab Class 12 board exams.
Vijay Inder Singla is the education minister of Punjab while Capt. Amarinder Singh is the Chief Minister. Last week, the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) stated that they are planning to conduct the Class 12 board exams in the month of June 2021. However, the state board is expected to change its decision after CBSE decided to cancel the Class 12 board exams.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi conducted a high-level meeting to review the board exam situation. Subsequently, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) announced the cancellation of Class 12 board exams. Instead of offline exams, students would be evaluated based on well-defined objective-criteria within a time-restricted and fair manner. Since then, students are incessantly requesting various state board to cancel their respective Class 12 board exams.
As of now, PSEB has decided to conduct the Class 12 state board exams in June 2021, however, due to the uncertainty created by the pandemic, the board is yet to announce the official examination schedule. Additionally, PSEB plans to conduct offline exams for three compulsory subjects in each stream. Furthermore, the board informed that the question papers are already read and distributed across 2,600 centres within the state.
While this seems to be the plan for now, CBSE’s decision is expected to influence most state education boards including PSEB. However, the state authorities are yet to make any announcement in this regard. Like most states, authorities in Punjab are expected to meet soon to take a final call on the board exams. PSEB has not yet released the examination schedule to conduct the state board exams this month. This is another indication that PSEB might just cancel their board exams or postpone them to a later date.
This year, approximately 3.18 lakh students are expected to appear for the Class 12 board exams within the state. While PSEB assured that they shall follow all social-distancing protocols, it is still risky to conduct the exams under such circumstances. the country is certainly recovering from the second wave of coronavirus. However, may take another month or so to completely recuperate and start reopening again.
Other than Punjab, states like Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh are etc to take a final call on their respective state board exams. If they were to follow in the footsteps of CBSE, each state has to separately create an objective criteria or alternative to evaluate students. Based on these criteria, marksheets must be prepared well-in time to not delay the upcoming academic year.
