The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is gearing up to hold the remaining board examinations, as per the schedule, in July.
The board has many challenges lying before it such as logistics, attendance of hundreds of thousands of students, and maintenance of social distancing norms in order to ensure the safety of the students and the invigilators, but it believes it can pass the tough test. An estimated 1.2 million students will be appearing for the Class 12 board examination which has been scheduled to take place between July 1, 2020, to July 15, 2020.
In order to prevent any chance of spreading of the coronavirus disease, all students and the invigilators will wear face masks and carry hand sanitizers when Class 12 board examinations will take place. To uphold the social distancing norms, the board will make seating arrangements in a way so that not more than a dozen students sit in an examination hall. CBSE has also planned to ask the examination centers to sanitize the examination halls twice- first, before the commencement of the exam, and then, after the conclusion of the exam, on a given day.
“It is a challenging task to conduct an exam of such a vast proportion when the country is still facing the pandemic but we feel it is doable because the previous exams in March were also conducted at a time when the onslaught of the disease was being felt and accordingly modifications made. We believe learning from that experience, we will be able to put a detailed safety mechanism in place,” said an official, as stated by Hindustan Times. In addition, in the north-east district of Delhi, Class 10 exams are scheduled for students where because of communal violence in February, some had to be postponed.
The maximum number of candidates who will be appearing for an exam on a single day will not exceed 400,000. Up to 1.95 lakh students sat on a single day for an exam in March before the papers were postponed due to coronavirus pandemic.
The maximum number of students — at least 350,000 — will appear for the Business Studies examination for class 12. The Hindi paper will see around 300,000 candidates taking the exam, Geography will have over 100,000 candidates while Home Science will have about 60,000 and Sociology will have some 50,000 candidates.
“There is still time and we will accordingly plan and bring suitable norms. However, there will be proper social distancing and precautions when the exams are conducted,” said another official.
