UP: Annual exams for entire year? Schedule mentions tests from March 2018 to 2019

AGRA: According to the annual exam schedule issued by the basic education department for the session 2018-19, the tests are to continue throughout an entire year. What’s more, most of that year has already passed. The order issued by Ruby Singh, secretary of the Basic Shiksha Parishad, mentions that the annual exams will be conducted from March 16, 2018 to March 23, 2019.

The letter was widely circulated in social media, mostly among teachers, drawing criticism from them about official carelessness. Singh had issued the letter mentioning exam schedules to assistant directors and basic shiksha adhikaris (BSA) of all districts on October 17. According to it, the half-yearly examinations are to be held from October 26 to November 6, 2018.

The order also mentions that evaluation process for the annual exams would start from March 24, 2019, a day after the exams end, and will be completed in the next three days. Results will be prepared on March 28 and 29 and the school will reopen on March 30.

BSA (Agra) Anand Prakash Sharma said, “Printing ‘2018’ in the starting date of the annual examination was an error, it should have been 2019. This was an honest mistake. Officials have been directed to make required arrangements to conduct exams as per norms.”

District general secretary of primary teachers’ association, Brajesh Dixit, said, “This is not the first case of official carelessness. Several such cases have surfaced in the past few months. If such a mistake had been made by a teacher, he or she would have faced strict action from the department.”

Earlier this year, several errors surfaced in new books distributed to students by the department. Some of them included the wrong date of birth of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and erroneous details about poet Tulsidas. Pages were also found be misplaced in some of the books.