CBSE board exams 2021: Delhi education department asks CBSE to push board exams to May next year

There is no surprise that the COVID-19 outbreak in India has disrupted the traditional teaching methods and resulted in loss of loss of classroom teaching time. Keeping this in mind, the Delhi government’s education department has recommended that the CBSE board exams to be held in 2021 should be conducted in May. The request was made in a written letter where the department asked for extension in the board examinations and said that it should not be conducted before May next year, The IE reported. According to the report, the letter was written by Saroj Bala Sain, additional director of education to the controller of examinations. Sain said that the government is requesting this to provide students “reasonable time to study” the syllabus.

The letter stated that the majority of time for the academic session 2020-2021, which can also be taken as approximately 7 months, was not properly utilised for classroom teaching and learning process. In Delhi, the schools will remain closed till October 31, 2020. While there have been many online or semi-online classes and activities/ assignments and worksheets were done via live classes, the process can still not replace the physical classroom environment. Earlier this month when the Delhi government extended the suspension of classroom teaching till October-end, the teachers were worried if senior students will be fully prepared for board examinations that are usually conducted in March every year, the report noted.

Therefore, the letter requested that the board exams for the current academic session that are expected to be held in March next year should be pushed to at least May 2021. Apart from this, the education department also requested to start the next academic session by July and not April. Additionally, the department shared another concern regarding the practical work in schools. The department said that it is crucial to provide students a sufficient period of time for practical subjects and give them hands-on experience with equipment. Therefore, CBSE was also asked to give detailed guidelines on conducting these practical exams.

The CBSE has also been asked to reduce the syllabus. It is to note that the board has already reduced the syllabus by 30 per cent in all subjects.