Exams to be held amid precautions (Source: CBSE/Twitter)
As the central and state boards prepare to conduct exams postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has issued strict guidelines to ensure health and safety of students, teachers and other stakeholders during the process.
The MHA, in an official order, has asked all the state boards to stagger their exam schedules and make special provisions. This will also be applicable to central boards CBSE and CISCE. While CBSE has announced to conduct the pending exams from July 1 onwards, several state boards are also in the process of releasing their exam dates.
Among major safety announcements, the MHA has asked boards to ensure that no exam centre falls in the containment zone of any state. Further, the states and UTs have been asked to make arrangements of special buses to transport students to and from their homes and exam centres.
Wearing of masks is mandatory for teachers, staff and students during the exam. The boards have also been asked to make a provision of thermal screening and sanitisers at centres. The MHA also asked to maintain social distancing in all exam centres.
Earlier, when the Minister of Health had raised concerns over the CBSE board exams, the Human Resource and Development (HRD) Minister had said, “We have issued guidelines to the CBSE in this direction. The guidelines issued by the Health Ministry will be followed at every cost.”
The HRD Minister had yesterday also announced to conduct the CBSE board exams in the schools where students have been enrolled to study to ensure minimum travel. Usually, a school is assigned to students as an exam centre. He informed that the evaluation process has already begun for the board exams and will continue to be held simultaneously with pending exams. He announced to declare the result by July-end.
“Requests have been received from state governments and CBSE for conducting board exams and the matter has been examined in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Taking into consideration the academic interest of a large number of students, it has been decided to grant exemptions from the lockdown measures to conduct board examinations for class 10 and 12,” the official statement by MHA read.